Defeat the Fear of Aging by Pouring into the Next Generation
“The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.” (Proverbs 20:29)
Many read the passage above and understand that father time remains undefeated and that everyone gets old eventually. As age begins to cripple our bodies, we may find ourselves unable to beat our personal record in bench press, or perhaps we notice that running around with the kids causes us to wake up sore the next morning. In fact, if we don’t get 8 hours of sleep, we now notice our ability to function is near impossible. In light of this, we are able to say yes and amen to strength being the glory of young men.
However, our culture has a nasty habit of forgetting the second half of that passage. Is gray hair really the splendor of old men?
All throughout the American church, we find believers who seem to be doing all they can to keep themselves looking young. Men and women alike will dress themselves in the latest fashions in order to remain trendy. Pastors like J.D. Greear will flaunt crisp shirts and skinny jeans on stage in hopes of appearing relevant. Churchgoers will keep up with the latest dietary trends from keto to carnivore in an effort to keep a youthful glow about them. For women, when that glow cannot be maintained naturally, they simply paint the barn with makeup that radiates the light they desire.
Now I believe there is a place for looking clean and respectable, especially in worship settings, but our culture goes far beyond that. We have an abundance of middle age to late age Christians who refuse to age with grace. As a result, we have grandmas in short skirts and grandpas in short shorts, neither of which anyone asked to see. Our culture has set the standard that women can age like Jennifer Aniston, who looks almost the same as she did when she starred in the sitcom Friends. For men, they should aspire to be a Tom Cruse.
Although many of us can be narcissistic and want to remain physically attractive and trendy, I believe the main cause for this vanity is not simply ego, but is instead an overabundance of fear. What fear exactly?
If the church was going to learn anything from the Covid-19 lockdowns, it should be the fact that we have a crippling fear of our mortality. Churches all across America shut their doors when magistrates informed them of a deadly virus capable of producing mass casualties. Perhaps at first glance this was an understandable response since we were initially sold a vision of overflowing hospitals and people dropping dead in the streets. Although the church should never have forsaken Paul’s instructions to not forsake gathering together to encourage and spur one another on in the faith, some grace can be extended to the pastor who truly thought he was preventing mass deaths among his flock.
However, long after the initial fifteen days to slow the spread, churches remained shut. This was driven in part by virtue signaling individuals who wanted to show how morally superior they were by social distancing. However, another main driving force was the older generation, who truly believed Covid would be their death.
Much could be said about this phenomenon of faithful believers fearing the physical death that would unite them with their savior, but I will leave that thread for another to pick up. I simply wanted to highlight how the fear of mortality causes individuals to remain in denial about their own age. So how does one combat this fear of aging? One effective way is to have a healthy view of what your final chapter of life may look like. I do this by examining the wise old sage archetype.
The western canon is full of examples of old men of wisdom passing along their knowledge and guidance to a young hero who is not yet fully equipped for the adventure he’s been given. Characters such as Merlin or Gandalf are seen as fan favorites, yet for the average consumer of these stories they seem far removed as models for the audience to aspire to. However, I’m encouraging that we do the work of examining what it is about these characters that audiences find so endearing in hopes that we may replicate these aspects in our own lives.
One reason behind the popularity of this archetype may be the fact that these characters are wise and have much to give to the protagonists they find themselves mentoring. Another is the fact that these characters often have a hidden strength that may be dwindling with age, but is not altogether lost. In the case of Gandalf, we see an inspiring hero’s death as he faces down the ancient demon Balrog in an effort to save the fellowship.
Whatever takeaways you might have in your examinations, my encouragement for the everyday believer is that dwelling on a future in which you age into a wise old sage that can inspire the next generation to greatness can cause the fear of aging to evaporate bit by bit.
This may require some intentionality, as becoming a wise old sage doesn’t happen overnight. In order to arrive at that destination, we must be committed to being forever learners. As proverbs tells us, we must seek wisdom above all the wealth this world has to offer. If we wish to maintain some degree of strength than we should be diligent to train often and nourish our bodies and value them as the temples they are. We do this not so we can remain forever young, but instead we maintain strength so that when a Balrog comes into our midst, we will be ready to sacrifice ourselves in order to allow the next generation a chance to continue the quest in our absence.
Ultimately, I am calling on believers to lean into your gray hair. Don’t fight it. View it as your splendor, and work every day to become a person worthy of that privilege. For myself, I hope one day I will be half as cantankerous and whimsical as Gandalf. A nice long beard would be great too.
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