counting with numbers.

Age is such a funny and fickle thing. A once in a lifetime opportunity. The numbers come and go, never to be returned to. My recent birthday left me forgetting how many years I had nestled in to this body, as I responded to the questioning of my age with an additional year added by accident.

I still see my nine year old self on the play ground walking with a friend sharing the excitement of becoming two full hands worth of years. Moving from one to two numbers to symbolize my age. An entire decade. And now, nearly two more have passed since. Two that saw the coming and going of sixteen leading in to eighteen, which inevitably escorted me in to twenty-one.

And now I sit with thirty approaching in two years. But that is all just math. Just the counting of my trips around the sun. And life is more than counting how many years everyone has accrued, though I used to think otherwise and always finding comfort in Paul's words to Timothy.

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12

Someone always has to be older and someone has to be younger.

But how do you get there? When do you cross over from the young to the old? When does the transition and exchange change place? At the rate I am going, I do not foresee the moment occurring. And when I get there, I probably will not remember what number I have racked up. 

I love how Paul said not let anyone look down on him. Timothy had a choice. He could let others look down on him or choose to rise past that, following his calling and setting an example for those who had more trips around the sun. He was to be the model to his elders of how to act in Christ, which our calling today despite whatever our birthday says.

Praying that you would not push off the advice of the younger because they have not yet experienced life the way you have and perhaps appears green and wearing rose colored glasses. Praying that those rose colored glasses would shed new light because of their innocence and wisdom that God gives despite how old.

Praying that as you accrue more numbers that you would not just grow taller but that you would be filled with the Spirit and bend to the teachings of Christ. That you would be more open to hearing the truth and correction and not stuck in the ways of your youth. That you would be more apt to putting off the old for the new and following Christ whole heartily.

Here's to numbers and birthdays and examples.