Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday September 28, 2011

Now into two full weeks of my seventieth year I was encouraged by this statement from the prolific pen of Five Star General Douglas MacArthur:

"People grow old only by deserting their ideals, Macarthur had written. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away."

Hopefully before the Christmas season my new book, Outrageous Forgiveness In 30 Days will be in the stores. Full of hope and enthusiasm for a good reception of the book have the third in the series ready for the editor. Well, almost. I have prayed for near 50 years, "Lord, the day my enthusiasm dies, may I die with it." A certain snarky whippersnapper referred to me as "middle aged." I sure hope he is right! 140 years sounds pretty good!

Enthusiasm derived from the Greek language basically means "The god within" and this definition has a tremendous application in the life of the Christian for we are told in Colossians 1:27 "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" (Emphasis mine). Christ, declared by the angel to be "God with you" lives in our heart, our spirit, so why should we grow so old as to wrinkle our soul?

Paul the writer who penned the above verse was then known as Paul the aged and there is no indication that he suffered from a withered soul, though his eyesight was so poor that he relied on the use of another's eyes to pen the thoughts he dictated, as God had done to him or some cases wrote in unusually large letters. (I hear the cannon fire).

Commenting on the beauty of aging with the awareness of enthusiasm C.S. Lewis wrote "You are never to old set another goal or to dream a new dream." My longtime pastor and friend, Dr. Tom Wallace, now in his eighties still travels widely preaching and teaching. Doing this has kept him young even to having as much hair as he did forty years ago. What a wonder. God is good.

Another friend, Dr. Paul Norwalt labors on with the vigor of enthusiasm in spite of the ravages of different afflictions related to aging and does so with the joy of the Lord bubbling in his spirit. Moses was eighty years along when he was called to lead God's children out of Egypt. Just saying…

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2011 Use with credit.

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