Are You Aging Well?

The end of 2014 is just around the corner.  Soon it’ll be New Year’s Day, 2015.

How are you holding up, age wise?  Feeling your age?

I recently rediscovered a little article entitled “How to Age Well” from my college Alma Mater’s publication, Biola Magazine (fall, 2013).  (Fitting, since I myself am pushing sixty.)  It delineated 10 things to do, if you want to age well: (1) Love yourself enough to take care of self.  (2) Get information about everything.  (3) Laugh.  That’s a good one to practice.

The list made sense.  All good and reasonable things to do: #4 exercise and keep mobile, #5 eat well.  Common sense things to take care of self: be mindful of one’s needs and conditions: #5 feed yourself well, #6 Get your rest, #7 floss your teeth (I thought that was an interesting one that the author, Di Patterson, thought needed highlighting).

Number 8 was interesting too: “Fight Depression.”  I suppose the older we get the easier it is to fall into depression, given the body’s aging process and its somewhat debilitating effect, among other things.  The nice thing I found about this particular point made is the assumption that one can actually fight depression.  How?  The author suggests volunteering (to avoid loneliness or perhaps feelings of insignificance).  In other words, stay connected.  I would add, have a cause or purpose that fills you with passion.

“De-clutter your space” was 9th on the list.  Yes, being organized, minimizing the messes in one’s life helps too.  But it wasn’t until we got to the final item on the list that our spiritual state was highlighted: #10 was “worship God.”  You know, I think the first item on the list could not happen without the 10th one.

The Apostle Paul in effect says that though our bodies are wasting away (dying from old age), our spirits, i.e. our inner beings, are being daily renewed and strengthened.  (See 2 Corinthians 4:16.)  Now that’s the key to aging well!  Renew a right spirit within me, I pray.  Let me have a spiritual awakening and gain ongoing spiritual enlightenment—in Christ, by means of the power of the Holy Spirit, by the Grace of God.

Sure we need to do what we can to keep the body in as good as shape as possible.  But it is the mind, heart, soul, and spirit that really count.  If we are not nurturing the wellbeing of our inner life, the mind and heart, for example, we are losing a lot more in old age than mere muscle strength, or visual acuity, or hearing capability, we are losing our very selves, our souls.

So what does it look like to nurture one’s soul or inner being?  The following is a list of characteristics that give evidence one’s soul is indeed being nurtured:

1. Being able to hear and recognize, listen to and respond to, God’s nudging, realizing God’s active presence in one’s life.
2. Being able to accept and receive God’s grace and forgiveness for the wrong one has done in one’s life—which presumes a confessional and repentant spirit & attitude.
3. Being able to be gracious and forgiving toward others for the wrong they’ve done to you, in the same spirit that God forgives you your wrongs.
4. Positively living in a way that blesses others—bringing peace, goodness, gentleness, and loving-kindness to them.
5. Being able to accept one’s mortality gracefully; that is, being ready to die, i.e., to enter into the presence of the Lord when the time comes, leaving behind a legacy of blessing others—family, friends, and acquaintances—which is a true witness to the Lord’s grace in one’s own life.

 Now that to me sums up what it means to age well.