Old Men Mess Up

There is a downside to spending most of my days with people who are half (or a third) my age: they often remind me that I am old. I'm not really. My grandmother lived 49 years longer than I have. That's pretty old. Methuselah lived 919 years longer than I have. That's ridiculous. I'm only starting to - maybe - get a little older.

I'm reading through the English Standard Version of the Bible, and now that I am getting used to its sometimes awkward word choices I'm starting to enjoy it. I have been wading through Jewish history for some time now, and a troubling observation has come to my attention:

Old men mess up.

There are some old men who messed up from the beginning and just conveniently continued to do so to the grave. But there are some real heroes in these stories, people we were told to emulate in Sunday school, who also messed up big time in their latter years. Some examples:

• Noah - There's guy who makes me feel young. Noah was 500 years old when he had his kids (what was he doing all that time?), 600 when the flood came and 601 when the doors were opened and he stepped out on dry land. First thing he does is plant a vineyard, make wine and get drunk, stretched out naked in his tent. Maybe not too serious, but there's something weird with this picture.

• Abraham - Man of faith, father of God's chosen people. Did some wonderful things, and then developed this habit of straight-out lies to cover his own butt. How Sarah put up with being passed off as his sister - twice - I don't know.

• David - God called him "a man after my own heart." And perhaps his best quality was the way he came clean with God as soon as he realized how badly he had messed up. But really: adultery and murder all in one shot. Bringing a plague on his people for disobediently counting his army. Big league sin.

• Solomon - The wisest, the richest, the most powerful king of Israel. How in his wisdom did he think it was okay to take on 700 wives and 300 concubines, mostly from the nations around him? "As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been." Not the best choice for the guy who had everything.

• Hezekiah - You have to feel sorry for this guy: he tried so hard to be a good king. Today, Sunday school teachers use his name to trick their students during sword drills ("Hezekiah!" and everyone furiously leafs through the Minor Prophets to no avail - he has no book named after him). He finishes off his career by showing his treasury to the officials of Babylon, kinda like counting all your $20 bills on a street corner in Harlem. Whew.

So I'm not putting these guys down for their mess-up's, major and minor. It's just that I saw a pattern here that nags at me. The band Thrice has a song about guys messing up, with the chorus, "Lord, don't I know... I'm just digging my own grave? Can't someone else please save myself from me?" You would think that having reached a ripe old age, we should be allowed to simply coast on our successes to a happy ending. But coasting seems to have a much different result.

Surely our enemy knows this, prowling around like a cougar, seeking whom to take his head in his jaws. Sure, he goes after the young guy to detract him from all he could become. But how much richer a prize is the old guy whom all the young guys look up to. His demise shakes up a whole broad territory of young leadership, destroys the work of a lifetime. Rich game.

Please pray for old men.

Old men, please don't coast. When success becomes effortless, get the heck out of there. If you find yourself drifting where you never went before, jump and swim for all your worth. When someone under you questions your decision, stop and listen instead of arrogantly moving ahead. If you become so full of yourself that there is no need for God, remember that all the king's horses and all the king's men may not be able to put you together again. You are about to fall. Big.

Please pray for old men.

I Hate Waiting

The most-quoted-by-Christians movie ever has to be "The Princess Bride." We seem to have claimed that one as our own: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Great stuff. Of course, half of what Inigo says is hard to understand because of his thick Spanish accent. So it took me a little while to figure out how he responded to the Man in Black who, as he struggled up the Cliffs of Insanity, said, "I'm afraid you'll just have to wait."

Inigo mutters, "I hate waiting."

A man after my own heart. It's not mere impatience. I just don't know what to do with myself in those moments I'm standing in line, waiting for someone to arrive or sitting in traffic. Maybe I am just a bit too intense, but I always seem to waiting for someone because I find myself a mile ahead of them, whether in space or time. Is it possible for people to move so slow? Do they think I have all day? Nothing else to do?

Actually, if I had something else to do - something worthwhile - I wouldn't so much mind waiting. Maybe I should get an iPhone, because my intern Jordan always seems to have something to do on his, and he can take it anywhere. If I could so fill up those empty spaces with something that I was always doing, maybe I would be okay. Maybe I would never again feel like I had to wait.

Check this out:

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.

Hmmmmm... bad news. God wants me to wait.

I know a guy right now who is waiting on everything. That right job. That right girl. That right life. Everything around him seems so much "Not yet" that it should be enough to throw him into despair, and occasionally it does. But most days I admire his attitude and his ability to not be passive in his waiting. In fact, I think the things he has been waiting for so long are taking a back seat to the opportunities God keeps placing right in front of him, which will make him neither rich nor married nor famous. He feeds the homeless, he helps with a youth group, he is loyal to his friends. I'm pretty proud of him, and not just because he's my son.

But why does God make him wait? What is there about waiting that makes it a "good" thing? Why does God like it when we are in the position of "Not yet"? What is waiting all about?

Here comes the analogy, and once again my dog Keeah is the teacher. When we got her as a puppy, we saw that her brothers and sisters were all bigger than her, so I guess she was always at the back of the food line. Whenever we went to feed her, she became frantic in her efforts to reach the food, often knocking it out of our hands as we gave it to her. Right from the start we began teaching her to not touch her food until we told her to "Take it." Before long, if we forgot to tell her, she would just sit there, hopeful tail wagging and drool dripping on the floor. But she would wait.

Every morning when I feed her, there is that moment when her food is in her bowl and I haven't yet given the word, and she looks up and fixes her eyes on me, all expectation and anticipation. At that moment, there is nothing else in the world to that dog. I have her undivided attention. A bunny could run by and she wouldn't notice. And I am reminded again of what it means to wait for God.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.

Waiting for God is a good thing because we develop the certainty that he has what we need, and that at the right moment he will say, "Take it."

This is how I need to fill up my times of waiting: Eyes fixed on God, full attention, full anticipation, expecting that at any moment he will say, "Here it is; take it." Knowing that whatever he puts in my bowl is the right thing; that he can be trusted, that every good and perfect gift is from above.

Put the iPhone down. Fix your eyes on him, and wait.