Eternal Trajectory
It seems like as we sin, we also age. Signs of “Maturity” in the world are often equated with sin, like being independent and disconnected, being sexually involved, being willing to fight, etc. “Maturity” can be portrayed like loneliness, and joylessness. My parents have a funny picture at home of this perception. It’s a diverging highway with signs marking the two paths: “Idealistic Youth” and “Bitter Old People”. The Dark Night captured this tendency in it’s iconic line: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.“
One time, as an upperclassman at CMU, I met a stranger (just walking around campus) and invited him to be part of the bible discussion group we have on campus. He looked at me and asked, “Are you a freshman?” I responded, “Ha, well, no I’m actually a 5th year architecture student, I’ll be graduating soon. Why do you ask?” He then pointed out, “Oh, you just don’t seem so jaded.” Interesting.
Unfortunately, I’ve watched many people lose their sense of joy and wonder with the world as they get older. Perhaps we feel we’ve probed the depths and found nothing. Perhaps the experience of pain and disappointment becomes overwhelming enough to let go of hope. I’m faced with decisions all the time to allow my idealism to fade, to give up on hope and harden myself to “reality.” But this is not the picture of the world that the bible presents, and it’s not the kind of life anyone wants to live.
Just as age and sin might be associated, so youth and righteousness are as well. Consider the following quote from Jesus.
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew. 18:3-4
Finding God reverses the cycle. Not only can we become like children again in our spirit, but we must.
Why is that? It’s because challenging your sin and changing your life to align with God forces you to have hope (not the other way around). The humility required to change your character is the same humility needed to acknowledge that the future is full of possibility. When you start changing from the inside, it feels like anything could happen. Instead of the future being predictable, it starts looking like it’s possible.
Our bodies must age but our spirits can get younger and younger. A childlike spirit is on an eternal trajectory; it can’t perish with age. It’s constantly awed, constantly refreshed. This kind of spirit challenges the jaded, and calls out the bitter. When it’s ambitions and goals are challenged, it doesn’t fall with them. A child sees possibility, not barriers.
When I see older people who are still filled with hope and awe, it’s one of the most impressive things to me. They’re winning one of the most difficult battles anyone will face. My grandmother was this sort of person: young till the day she died. May it also be said of me.
