Mark Batterson, in his new book on prayer, The Circle Maker, makes an interesting observation about a danger associated with aging. “Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency presents a grave spiritual danger. At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. Instead of going after our dreams, we stop circling Jericho.”
The date of organizational death is the day we strop dreaming. The day we stop dreaming is the day we start dying.
Batterson adds, “We lose faith in the God who gave us the big dream and settle for a small dream that we can accomplish without His help. We go after dreams that don’t require prayer. And the God who is able to do immeasurably more than all our right brain can imagine is supplanted by a god – lowercase g – who fits within the logical constraints of our left brain.”
It bothers me that I sometimes find myself worrying more about getting hurt than taking a risk. Our staff played flag football recently and my goal was to survive. I did score a bruising touchdown over a colleague – she put up quite an effort! But some of you know what I mean – caution can sometimes suck the life out of adventure.
It is not just physical adventure. Coasting toward retirement makes work less rewarding. Churches can find themselves content to rest on the achievement of previous generations.
The older you get, the more faith you should have because you’ve experienced more of God’s faithfulness.
My favorite Old Testament character is Caleb. Caleb was one of two spies that believed God could overcome the powerful enemies in the land of Canaan. Ten spies succumbed to their fears and failed to see God’s ability to overcome. As a result Israel spent forty years wandering in a wilderness, when they could have been occupying the Promised Land. We catch up with Caleb after those forty years.
Caleb should be retired now, right? Listen to his words in Joshua 14:10-12 (God’s Word Translation) “So now look at me today. I’m 85 years old. I’m still as fit to go to war now as I was when Moses sent me out. Now give me this mountain region which the Lord spoke of that day. You heard that the people of Anak are still there and that they have large, fortified cities. If the Lord is with me, I can force them out, as he promised.”
My hero. There are mountains to climb, giants to overcome – if the Lord is with me.
Glen Schneiders
