As a young kid I was oblivious to old age, oblivious in the sense that I did not see old age ever happening to me. It felt as if my grandmother had always been old – even though the old black and white pictures in her photo album told a different story. It didn’t cross my mind that I would look just like my grandmother if I lived to be 94. As youngsters we think we live forever.

If we are blessed with a long life we will experience how our body switches gear over time. It’s not pleasant to see physical features disintegrate. It is humiliating to lose our faculties. Aging is hard and none of us know what we will have to deal with. God knows it and He says that He will sustain and carry us when the time comes.

The “circle of life” is deeply embedded into the human psyche. If we have children we generally take comfort in the fact that our gene pool lives on past our death. When Jacob, aka Israel was reunited with his son Joseph he had believed dead, he was ready to pass on the torch to the next generation and die (Genesis 46:30):

“Israel said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive.”

The best we can hope for towards the end of our life is a sense of fulfillment. Israel had this sense of fulfillment when he embraced his son. Children can help us transition from this life to the next, but not everybody has children and not everybody has good relations with them. Probably we should not pin our hopes too much on people. God alone provides solid peace of mind.

Finding God is finding life. God’s Spirit is poured out all over the world. I hope every person on this planet hears His voice and does not walk alone. Following God’s Son Jesus is not the easiest thing to do, but it’s the best thing to do. If you have not met Him yet, pray to Him and He will welcome you. If you have encountered Him, hold on to Him. He will see you through this life and beyond the valley of the shadow of death.

We need God when we are young and strong just as much as we need Him when we are old and grey. However short or long our life turns out to be, walking with God we will leave a legacy.