When I was a kid, my Dad was very strict about honoring people. One group that he was particularly fussy about was seniors. As he put it, “Seniors have lived a lot of life and have accomplished a lot in their lives, and now they can’t do what they once were able to do, so they tend to feel like losers. We need to treat them and talk to them like they are champions, conquerors, and kings because much of what we enjoy in a society is because of what they did.”
Leviticus 19:32 You shall rise before the grayheaded and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.
It is interesting that in this verse, honoring the aged and honoring God, we’re doing the same thing in different ways.
I was in the airport recently, and a security guy said that because I was over 75 years old, I didn’t need to remove my shoes. I said, “That is nice,” and he said, “You have earned it!” That was a simple exchange, but I felt honored by this man I had never seen before. We don’t honor seniors because of what they did yesterday but because of what they did 10 and 20 years ago.