I have been coming to Alaska fishing in the summer for 25 years. Usually, I fish for 18 hours a day minimum while I am here. Often, in the past, I have gone to sleep in a chair in the living room with my waders still on, slept for two hours, and then headed out to fish some more. A couple of years ago, I didn’t take my waders off for two days. I was a real fishing fanatic. I tried to do that this year; we fished from 6:00 pm until midnight and went back to the lodge, and I slept in the chair and got up and went fishing with another group from 4:00 am until 9:00 am. It took me two days of sleeping ten hours a day until I felt good again. As the song goes, “The old grey mare ain’t what she used to be!”

I have pondered this getting old thing, and all the adjustments that I need to make year by year that I hate, and why God made things this way. I know it is pretty universal, this getting old thing and becoming less mobile, less energetic, less many things. Even Old Testament people experienced it.

1 Samuel 4:15
Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were set so that he could not see.

1 Samuel 4:18
When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for he was old and heavy. Thus he judged Israel forty years.

God’s goal for each of us in this life is to make us grow in character as much as possible so that we become like Jesus in character so that we can enjoy Him and He us for eternity because we are like Him. He accelerates that process at the end of our life because we still have so far to grow and thus all the health issues.

My part in these years of accelerated growth is not to fuss and whine but to rejoice always and to trust Him totally with my life. I am working on doing that. I certainly don’t want to waste these years of getting older and all that getting older stuff.

James 1:2-3 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Romans 5:3-4
We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character;

Romans 8:28-29 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;