Extra Ten?

Seventy years are given us! And some may even live to eighty. But even the best of these years are often empty and filled with pain; soon they disappear, and we are gone. Psalms 90:10 TLB

Take my word for it, the years pass quickly. It seems one minute you are meeting and marrying the girl of your dreams, and the next minute you are watching and babysitting your grandchildren. When that phase of life is over, the house is quiet, and there comes a time when one of you is left alone due to sickness, illness, or accident. This part of your life is not the way you had imagined or planned.

During later years you may be alone, but sadly you may also become lonely. There is nothing you can do about this except bear it with grace and patience. We are reminded by God that we have an allotted span of seventy years, or maybe a bonus of another ten, making it eighty. In any case, there is a time when your mortality becomes evident. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t often think of death or dying (each of which is very different) but there is an awareness which grows as time passes.

If you are able, give some thought to the way you would like to live out these extra ten years. Obviously, you want to make them count. But how? Can I impose on you and make some suggestions as one who is approaching my God ordained limit?

> if you are blessed to have family, treasure them all. They are your gift.

> read, take up a hobby and find an interest. The devil finds work for idle hands.

> don’t drift from old friends, and make new ones. This reduces loneliness.

> attend or join a church. There is nothing better than the company of Christian friends.

That’s not a lot to take in during the last years of your life, and if you don’t try, those years will drag and you will become a grumpy old misery-guts. You probably know one already, so don’t be like them. The verse ends with the words “soon we are gone” which is worded in other translations as “soon we fly away”. Keep that promise in your head, heart and mind. When you have the full assurance of heaven, living out the remainder of your allotted life span isn’t so bad after all, is it? I like the way Paul puts it in Romans 14:8 TLB: “Living or dying we follow the Lord. Either way we are His.”