Such things stack up over the years and they can be wearying to the soul. The longer one lives the more one sees of war, poverty, brokenness, all the pathologies birthed in human sin. The disadvantage that comes with age is that experience is also the experience of years of struggle and pain. Alas, my whole self has had to travel through time to get to this point and while parts of my body are already beginning their slow decline, I feel a sense of depth, wholeness, and understanding flourishing within of the kind that only comes with age. I sometimes tell people that I wish I had everything I know about the world now and my 18-year-old body.

There’s a good to that because one can learn much and gain wisdom if their eyes and ears and heart is open through the years to take in and learn the lessons of life.

Yet, before you get worried or call 911 or think I’m off my rocker I need to explain what I mean because in a Christian context that statement is remarkably different from how it may be expressed in the world.Īs I get older I have the advantage and disadvantage of having more experience, of having seen more of life than I did when I was in my youth and physical prime.

I envy the dead