Tag: aging

Honoring Our Aging Parents: A Sacred Duty

Brent takes a convicting look at the divine call to “honor” our parents as they get older:
“We should fully accept this privilege and dismiss contemporary “Corban” justifications, such as busyness, distance, or misaligned priorities. Looking after our parents goes beyond mere duty; it embodies the love of God that transcends generations….”

Brent Pollard

Have you ever considered the number of visits you have remaining with your elderly parents? If they are in their seventies and you only see them a few times a year, you could have less than 100 days to spend with them. This poignant reality, drawn from Psalm 90.12—“So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom” (NASB95)—compels us to value the limited moments we share with our parents.

Scripture emphasizes our obligation to honor our parents, which persists throughout their later years. The fifth commandment states, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20.12 NASB95). In Mark 7.9-13, Jesus emphasized this point by condemning the Pharisees for exploiting the “Corban” loophole, which allowed them to declare resources as dedicated to God to avoid providing support for their elderly parents. He emphasized that honoring parents is essential and cannot be compromised. Similarly, Paul states in 1 Timothy 5.4 (NASB95): “They must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God,” emphasizing that caring for parents is an expression of faithfulness.

What does “honor” signify as parents grow older? The Hebrew term kabab conveys a sense of weight and respect, manifesting in concrete actions such as dedicating time, resources, and presence. We carry a responsibility from the years they invested in us, a “return” that embodies appreciation and affection. Proverbs 23.22 (NASB95) states, “Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old,” as a reminder to cherish them even in their vulnerability.

Neglecting this duty has serious consequences. Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” depicts a father who is too busy to care for his son, only to face the same neglect in old age: “My boy was just like me.” This cultural parable reflects a current crisis: loneliness among the elderly. Research indicates that one in three adults over 50 experiences regular feelings of isolation, which are associated with depression and an increased risk of premature death. Our presence can break the cycle, bringing joy and connection to those most needing it.

How can we fulfill this biblical call in our lives? Here are some practical steps to consider:

1. Prioritize Time: Schedule regular visits, calls, or video chats. Even short interactions can make a significant difference.

2. Offer Support: Assist with errands, medical needs, or financial issues. If you’re not nearby, consider arranging help through others.

3. Be Present: Make sure to invest time in hearing their stories and sharing your experiences with them. This action demonstrates that they continue to hold significance in your life.

4. Include Them: Invite them to family events to reinforce their place in your life.

5. Support Spiritually: Pray alongside them or encourage their faith, honoring their legacy.

We should fully accept this privilege and dismiss contemporary “Corban” justifications, such as busyness, distance, or misaligned priorities. Looking after our parents goes beyond mere duty; it embodies the love of God that transcends generations. As Paul cautions in 1 Timothy 5.8, failing to address this undermines our faith. Let us take action before time slips away and discover the blessings of embracing this sacred responsibility.

Time Flies, But We Navigate

Monday’s Column: Neal At The Cross

Neal Pollard

Ann Turner Cook passed away at her St. Petersburg, Florida, home on Friday, June 3, 2022. She was 95 years old, was an educator, a novelist, a wife, and a mother. Her father was a well-known cartoonist. But you almost certainly know her for a charcoal drawing that was made of her by an artist neighbor, Dorothy Hope Smith. It was submitted for the label of a baby food company and chosen in 1928, then trademarked in 1931. Ann was the original Gerber baby (news report here)! You’ve seen that iconic picture. If you realized she was a real person, you never thought about the fact that this baby grew up and eventually grew old. Or that she would now be dead.

I know nothing about Mrs. Cook’s religious life or spiritual preparation. But I do know that she is part of a universal truth concerning life, and that is that death comes relatively soon for us all. How soon? 

  • Like water spilled on the ground (2 Sam. 14:14). 
  • Like a weaver’s shuttle (Job 7:6; Isa. 38:12). 
  • Like a breath (Job 7:7).
  • Like a shadow (Job 8:9; 1 Chr. 29:15; Ec. 6:12). 
  • Like a flower (Job 14:2).
  • Swift as a runner (Job 9:25).
  • Like a handbreadths (Ps. 39:5).
  • Like a wind that passes (Ps. 78:39). 
  • Like a sigh (Ps. 90:9). 
  • Like smoke (Ps. 102:3).
  • Like a lengthened shadow  and grass (Ps. 102:11; 109:23). 
  • Like a passing shadow (Ps. 144:4). 
  • Like a fading flower or withering grass (Isa. 40:7-8; Js. 1:10; 1 Pet. 1:23-25). 
  • Like a vapor (Js. 4:14). 

With that in mind, shouldn’t we pray with David, “LORD, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; Let me know how transient I am” (Ps. 39:4).

Yes, we can look at the Gerber Baby and see that. Or we can look through our own family albums. The baby, childhood, and young adult photos of our grandparents, parents, or ourselves. The weathering winds of time do sure and quick work, reminding us of the many ways the Bible depicts it for us. Time is short and it passes quickly.

Rather than a depressing inevitability, this should be a respected teacher. We should pray with Moses, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:9). We should take Paul’s inspired advice and “be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16). Don’t leave undone what needs to be done. Don’t put off what must be done before this life is over. It will be over before you know it. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (9:27). 

When Adversity Makes You Feel Unproductive

Friday’s Column: Supplemental Strength

brent 2020

Brent Pollard

If there’s one thing disappointing me most, it’s the lack of productivity I often feel. There are many things I want to do. I don’t think I get even a quarter done. For many facing a similar predicament, it’s a matter of poor time management. Time is precious. We’re told to make the most of it since the days are evil (Ephesians 5.16). Contextually, this pertains to the efforts made by first-century Christians in their daily walk. Persecution was coming. Indeed, for some, their lives would soon be at an end. Did they want to depart for eternity’s shore feeling as if more could have done but had not been? That message remains prescient today. We enjoy civil liberties now including religious freedom. However, a tempest has been growing for half a century which seeks to strip away the vestiges of religion and morality from the body politic. In but a short time we may face the same uncertain prospects as they. Hence, our struggle to be productive is as important as ever.

This exhortation may be limited in scope, but I wish to address those who might have certain mitigating factors making Paul’s inspired admonition more difficult to keep. It’s one thing to be a timewaster when one is able-bodied. It’s another matter entirely when you’re limited from accomplishing as much by the limitations of the flesh. There are those accustomed to doing much. One day they young, full of vigor. In the blinking of an eye, though, they no longer recognize the person staring back at them in the mirror. The snow of many winters covers what hair is left on their heads. For such, it hurts getting out of bed. Something as simple as buttons on garments becomes a time-consuming challenge. They may be asking, “Why can’t I get as much done as I used to?” This can be especially vexing, spiritually.

Perhaps, you have an illness of the body or mind. Maybe you don’t have old age to blame for your aches and pains but an autoimmune disease that others dismiss because, from appearances, you look fine. Not only are you in pain but you feel alone because some have unfairly surmised you’re just lazy. It could be that you’ve had chemotherapy and experience what has been termed “chemo brain.” You find yourself struggling to remember simple details. If you don’t write something down, you’ll forget about it. Truly, I could share a plethora of other scenarios in which some malady besets the body or mind and causes one to feel unproductive or a timewaster. These should suffice.

Fortunately, we serve a gracious God. Not only is His grace sufficient for coping with our lot in life (2 Corinthians 12.9), but it takes into consideration our current estate. One can debate whether there are degrees of punishment from Luke 12.48. That’s not my purpose. A principle is established here, however, stating that we’re held accountable according to the responsibility entrusted to us. Why would God hold the enfeebled or impaired to the same standard as the able-bodied? This must be true of redeeming one’s time as well. Note, one cannot forsake his or her Christian duty. Yet, rather than beat up on yourself because of what you left unaccomplished, trust that God knows your situation intimately. The main thing is to show up and do the work of which you are capable (Matthew 20.1-16; 21.28-32). This is how you remain productive even while facing adversity in these evil days.

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A SWEET OLD PERSON

Neal Pollard

Today, I talked with some godly, sweet, and loving elderly people.  They are people I respect and admire.  They are full of rich memories, have vast experience, and profound wisdom.  You are drawn to them.  The people I’m referring to are neither superhuman nor necessarily those whose lives have been easier. Their sweetness is a product of their good attitudes.  Not every elderly person I talk to are those I’d consider godly, sweet, or loving.  They are bitter, rude, mean-spirited, selfish, and even, at times, belligerent. While dementia might transform the occasional person’s personality, there is a simpler explanation for how some old people get to be unpleasant. They were that way when they were younger.

Life is about the sum total of the choices we make, the way we bend our will, and our reaction to the adversities of our lives.  We are building character, one day at a time, one reaction at a time.  As I think about it, I know some godly, sweet, and loving children, teens, young adults, and middle-agers. I also know too many who are none of these things. If they live long enough, they’ll grow into more hardened, exaggerated forms of themselves.  Gossips can become worse gossips in the golden years because they may have more time and have had more practice. Grouches seem to grow worse with time and opportunity.  The impure of heart, after years of harboring filth, allow it to spill over far more often in words and deeds (how many of us have encountered a “dirty old man”—a more elderly form of the “dirty young man”).  Worriers in youth make fretful worriers in the twilight time of life. So many traits of character and attitude in the old have been in the making in the young.

In Psalm 119:9, David asks, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.” Solomon saw among the youths a young man lacking sense (Prov. 7:7). He also counseled one to remember his creator in days of youth (Ecc. 12:1). God can be our confidence from our youth (Psa. 71:5). These and so many other admonitions aimed at those in days of youth will also protect and preserve those who reach old age.  What can I do to make sure I am a sweet old person?

  • Be intentional.  Take steps to be sweet.  It’s not many people’s natural mode of operational.  Spending much time with God and learning to imitate Him helps with this.
  • Be introspective. Take time and effort to examine yourself. Are you ill-tempered, impatient, easily irritated, easily put out, and the like?  Warning!  You’re well on your way to being a crotchety curmudgeonly coot!
  • Be interested. Selfishness is behind those traits that lead one to be unpleasant in the winter of life. Be genuinely, actively interested in the welfare, needs, and interests of others.  Taking the focus off self will aim you toward sweetness.

We could probably think of more suggestions, but here’s a good start.  Surely, we’d all like to be sweet old people when the day comes.  But, don’t wait! Start now!

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE!

 

Neal Pollard

Ask George Dawson!  This Texas grandson of a slave, born in 1898, worked from the age of twelve on a ranch tending livestock.  He married at the age of twenty-eight, becoming a father the next year.  What is so noteworthy about this man?  Well, for 98 years he did not know how to read.  In 1996, ten years after the death of his spouse, a young man working for an organization designed to teach adults how to read knocked on Dawson’s door.  He was able to achieve a fourth-grade reading level and even read the Bible aloud at church services.  He summed up his remarkable story by saying, “I just figured if everybody else can learn to read, I could too” (Bingham, Reader’s Digest, June 1998, p. 156).

Ask Medzhid Agayev, who was the oldest resident in Azerbaijan in 1976.   He decided to retire—after 120 years as a shepherd at the age of 139!  The Russian press agency in Novosti said, “He is in good health.  He is thin, active and has excellent eyesight.”  Perhaps he quit his job to enjoy as many of his 150 children and generations of grandchildren as he could.  He was a tribute not only to longevity, but also to changing one’s life even after such a period of time as Agayev had lived.  Yet, he was a baby compared to a 165-year-old man named Shirali Muslimov and a 195-year-old woman named Ashura Omarova, both reported by the Novosti press agency in 1970 as living in the Soviet Union republics of Caucasus (what today is Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia)( The Centenarian Question: Old-Age Mortality in the Soviet Union, 1897 to 1970, Lea Keil Garson,Population Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jul., 1991), p. 265).

Many Bible characters, Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 18:11-15), Barzillai (2 Sam. 17:27ff), Jacob (Heb. 11:21), Anna (Lk. 2:36), and others teach by their lives that it is nevertoo late to be servant of God.  The foolish may set aside the counsel of the “gray heads” (cf. 1 Kgs. 12:6ff), but the Lord’s church today will carefully consider the wisdom of her senior saints!  Age may bring limitations, but the aged are among the most precious resources we have for spiritual strength and progress!  It is never too late for an elderly Christian to be a viable contributor to the life and work of the church.  In fact, Paul puts such on a high pedestal (Ti. 2:1-10).

It is also never too late to become a Christian!  This is true, whether one is eighteen, eighty, or any time before, between, or after.  Almost is after (Acts 26:28), later is a lie (Acts 24:25), and waiting is a wager few win (Prov. 27:1).

In youth we anticipate the stability of adult life as the time when becoming a Christian will be easier.  With adulthood comes, marriage, children, and job concerns, and retirement becomes a more appealing time to obey the gospel.

Three potential tragedies await those who bank on the elusive capital of tomorrow.  First, old age may find one too distracted with golden year goals to make the commitment to Christ.  Second, death may stand between one and the time he or she hoped to be a baptized believer.  Third, Christ may come before one submits to the Lord’s plan.

However, now—being the accepted time (2 Cor. 6:2)—is not too late!  Are you still breathing in and out?  Is there still within you a heart soft enough to be touched by the power of the gospel?  If so, it is not too late!  As long as there is time and opportunity, it is never too late to do all the will of God!

Your eyes may be cloudy, a halt may slow your gait.
But as long as your soul is within you, it is never, no never too late.
The years you may have wasted, and in shame you might hesitate,
But though it be the eleventh hour, it is never, no never too late.
–NP