For Those Who Think They Are Too Old
Older people are typically faithful to the routines of their life. Those routines can become a hindrance, not because of their faithfulness, but because of missing the miracles available within it. Zechariah was someone who was faithful to perform his duties everyday, even within his spiritual work where such things might be expected. However, when a divine encounter suddenly happened within his routine, the message of the encounter made no sense. The divine message did not fit with his understanding of age and time.
How does an unfitting message fit inside of us?
It grows.
The divine messenger relayed a message of birth coming to Zechariah’s wife. Being “too old” was a hindrance to his reasoning because how could such a thing be at their age? So the messenger made Zechariah silent and he could not speak until the message had been fully birthed in his wife’s body. This silence was a gift, as faith would begin to grow inside Zechariah’s own body at the same time.
When you think you are too old or your aged routine is void of new possibilities, it's time to pay attention to what is wanting to give birth. What is born in old age is priceless and aged in a way far more profound than what is born in the earlier years of life when such things are expected. It is in the unexpected and the unreasonable that are always happening with God, and should we not have the eyes to see this, the invitation into the depth of silence invites us to learn. Intentional silence is a type of prayer that prevents our own hearts and mouths from speaking of our doubts too quickly in a way that clouds divine messages.
Silence leads us into the cloud of unknowing where we patiently wait for a divine messenger's words to both come and to be fulfilled, in others and ourselves.
If you are one of those who feels too old for miracles, it’s time to enter into the silence of both your doubt and the hopeful invitation now given. In silence you will slowly trust God as things slowly grow and impossibilities turn into promises. It is exactly the miracles in old age that come from being aged like fine wine, which create unique beginnings. Being hospitable to these messages to bring them forth is an eldering response for the continuation of life, even within expressions we do not understand.
Your years of being alive contain seeds of wisdom you yourself do not yet know the full ramifications of.
So then too old ones, you are now called upon to understand the gift of age and the possibilities within it that only you can give birth to. Though culture may have seemed to have passed you by, God has not. You are right on time to receive something to pass along to future generations you will never see. But you will see the beginning of the sprouting seed in this one. You will emerge from the darkness of silence to speak a joyful hope to the world.
That thing that lept in your belly or heart as you read this is the divine encounter.
Now wait for it to grow old with you to give birth to something new.
In Love,
-PH
