The aging of our physical bodies humbles us and brings us low. The decades crumble us down, and the years of storms and winds weather us. We sense a melting back into the earth like the old adobe walls of a Santa Fe cabin, left open to the elements. It is only the joy and laughter and love that once abode inside those walls that make it all mean something.
It is a lot like God’s Spirit as He inhabits His people, bringing love and joy into our hearts during our brief sojourn here on earth.
We bear the burden of aging that we might walk more humbly before our Maker. Speaking of the Spirit, He said through His apostle Paul that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.” Our finite, mortal bodies at present actually serve to draw us closer to the immortal God. For He “resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
We gaze into the mirror and see the face of vulnerability, the face of one incredibly close to death, yet we now are not dismayed. For we are reminded by Him that it is no longer “I” that lives but the Spirit of Christ that lives in us. “We are dead and our lives are hid with Christ in God.” And He said that if we faithfully follow Him, He will give us a new spiritual body at the end of the age. Furthermore, if we are physically alive when He comes back, these old earthly bodies will be swallowed up by the new spiritual body He has prepared for us. It is all good (II Cor. 4th and 5th chapters).
Moreover, it is fascinating to see how God works out His plan. He has ordained the weakness of the human body as a tool to manufacture divine attributes, made to be displayed in the arena of human relationships. “All things [‘good’ or ‘bad’] work together for good for them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose.”
It is God’s will that we suffer with Him in these fragile earthen bodies, as we face the fact that man must go “to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets…Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecc. 12: 5-7). Facing our own mortality has a way of humbling us. He favors those who know they are weak and need Him.
Nevertheless, through God’s grace, you and I have hope of an everlasting future in an everlasting body composed of spirit. That’s the word of His promise to us. He loves us and has given us His best—Himself. It’s just that before all this can take place, He has us walking “through the valley of the shadow of death.” That painful and sometimes lonely trail is the only road to immortality. Kenneth Wayne Hancock
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Immortality Road 
Reblogged this on ChristianBlessings.
Been a deeply spiritual and introspective week for me. Not because of Easter season though. Friday a person from the church called requesting I become a member of the finance committee here in Greensboro, North Carolina for Faith Presbyterian which father, son and I attend for three years now. The congregation is small and very aged and people are dying off. I have a feeling with assurance that a deacon/elder role may be suggested for me in near future. Naturally I will accept. Have not felt the Holy Spirit’s firm grasp of me like this in decades. I’ll be 69 in June and seems we are never too old to be called to serve Christ’s Church in some measure. Some years back an interviewer asked Billy Graham about his advancing years and retirement plans. He replied that it is not scriptural for a preacher of the Gospel to ever retire. We are never too old. RIP Billy G.
Thanks, Carl, for sharing this thought. The church there will receive a blessing having you there. Never too old…kwh
Thanks for the “likes.” God bless you all. kwh
Reblogged this on Precious Sheep Of Renown.
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Thank you for the likes and comments. kwh