| 2 Corinthians 4:16 – “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” |
Sometimes, looking in the mirror can be depressing. We never see what we used to see. We have aged and time takes its toll.
Our faces line with wrinkles.
Hands which were once so young are spotted and speckled.
Joints pop and creak like an old house in a storm.
Disease begins to attack the body–arthritis, diabetes, and a myriad of other maladies afflict.
And many fight it.
They try the latest diet
Lines at plastic surgery clinics become packed.
However, Emerson observed that the average man is “born red and dies gray.”
We are born full of life and vigor. A baby’s lungs belt out sound and young legs run swift.
But as time goes on, the red tint of youth gives way to the gray hair of age.
One great truth we all face is that we age with time.
None of us are like Benjamin Button, the major character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Button is born old. Doctors are bewildered how a baby can have the arthritis of an old man.
Then, as time passes, he grows younger, stronger until he must live in a basinet because he becomes a baby.
In a sense, that is what Paul says we are inside.
He told the Corinthians: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16, NIV)
We have a banana peel body, one that grows brown and shriveled.
But our spirit? In Christ, it grows newer, younger, more vibrant day by day.
What Paul says to us is the reverse of Emerson–we are born gray, and we die red.
So, relish the age you have because it shows a long and full life. But thank God for the daily renewal for it shows a fuller life.
–Robert G. Taylor
robertgtaylor.com
