Dave's Deep Thoughts - Growing Older

Here's Pastor Dave McDowell's weekly devotional that he sends out to members of his church. Dave is my brother and serves as the Music Minister at Stewartstown UMC in PA.

I tried to blame it on the hour change. 

But now, I think I need to blame on THE CHANGE,

that is the change in me.

When I was a teen,

my dad brought home this fancy television.

It had this thing called a "remote"

which allowed you to switch channels without getting out of your seat.

My dad thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

I thought it was a sure sign the world was coming to an end.

As if I were a prophet years before Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign,

I told my dad this was his first step toward the nursing home.

"You mean a 50 year old man is too lazy to get out of his chair?"

I said incredulously.

Now as an 18 year old,

I couldn't "remotely" grasp what it meant for him to be 50.

But that gadget in my father's hands was for me,

the ultimate sign of slothfulness.

Add in the fact, that my dad was reclining

 on a piece of  furniture called a "Lazy Boy".....

'Nuff said.

Sure enough,

 this modern lazy gadgetry soon had my dad

sawing logs long before Johnny Carson hit the air.

Fast forward a few years,

okay, a lot of years.

I now live in a home with soft living room furniture,

a television that picks up hundreds of channels from outer space,

surround sound,

and three remotes.

So much for standing up against laziness.

I remember my college days when I would START watching a movie at 11pm,

and would remain conscious throughout.

My favorite baseball team was playing on the west coast??

I could tell you who won, even if it went to extra innings.

Then there were the twenties,

when I would end my day with The Tonight Show,

followed by a little dose of The Letterman Show.

By my early thirties,

I rationalized my increasingly earlier bedtimes

as "becoming an adult."

Being an adult meant responsibly going to bed after Jay Leno's opening monologue.

By my mid-thirties, my adulthood was rarely staying awake through the eleven o'clock news.

Then I hit 40.

That meant I had a 40% chance of making it through my favorite ten o'clock shows.

By the mid-forties,

my 9pm shows were in jeopardy,

so I did what any person in denial would do........

I started recording them so I could re-watch them during the next day.

At age 50,

I tried to rationalize that if I remained upright while watching television,

I could stay awake.

As a young person, I could never understand when I saw

 elderly people sound asleep while sitting in their wheelchairs.

Now I understand.......

that is after I found myself unconscious while sitting upright,

with drool running down my cheek by the midway point of my eight o'clock shows.

So I did what an self-respecting middle-age man who continued to be in denial would do.........

I resorted to caffeine, lot's of it.

Amazingly, caffeine didn't get me though prime time,

but it did give me 4 extra trips to the bathroom each night.

Finally, I had to accept the inevitable....

I had become my father,

just with two extra remotes.

And now that I am in my fifties, I realize that isn't a bad thing.

In fact, it is good.

In the almost 25 years that my dad has been gone,

I have come to realize how many mannerisms and tendencies I have

that come from him,

how many values and ethics that he taught  me,

how many lifetime lessons that he demonstrated to me.

What I was trying to deny is what I eventually embraced with love.

And so it is with our lifetime walk with God.

Our years on earth are formative years to become more and more like Christ.

We have been given the written Word,

the Word incarnated,

and the Word impressed onto our spirits.

We are without excuse.

So whether you are in the prime time

or in the late night time slot of your life,

the question remains the same.....

Are you more like Christ than you were a year ago?

It's not about earning our way into eternity,

We can't do that anyway.

It's about preparing us for the eternity.

which is already here in our midst.

Jesus repeatedly reminded His disciples

that the Kingdom of Heaven was already in their midst.

So, as we get older,

let's not pretend that we aren't changing.

In fact,

let's hope that we are,

 into His likeness.

Now let's get back to the Jay Leno Show.

What?

He's not on any more?

Wow, I must have slept through that.......

Now the Lord is the Spirit;

and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror

the glory of the Lord,

are being transformed into the same image

form glory to glory,

just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

                                             2 Corinthians  3: 17-18

The apostle Paul speaking on how we are transformed by Christ's divine glory.