On Reaching 74

When I retired and turned in my robe for a pair of work jeans and the pulpit chair for a seat on the tractor, I looked ahead and counted the years that seemed reasonable and possible.  Of course, we all know the folly of such counting.  The only day we can count is the one we live today.  Nonetheless, I looked ahead with hope, optimism, and a belief that there were good years ahead.  And, so it has been.  Twelve years have passed by somewhere into the past and they have been good.   For each of them I am grateful.   

But, now as one who has been blessed with something written in the Word, "The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty if we are strong..."  (Psalm 90:10), I find myself still going forward into whatever it is that is ahead with the same hope and optimism of the day that brought me here.   I have received no premonitions which might point to the final year coming soon even as I have not received any guarantees of making it through a few more on the way to eighty.   

I remember hearing E. Stanley Jones, a great missionary evangelist to India and the world, saying back in my Asbury days that the Lord had given him ten more years.  While I would have no problem with hearing such a word, I am content to know that the years that remain for me here on this earth will be years of being in the hands of the Father God who created me and that when those years are ended, I will continue to be in those same sure hands of a God who also holds eternity.