Nearing Home by Billy Graham (best book club books for discussion txt) 📗

readers to commit their lives to Him while they are still young. The reason? Not only would God give meaning and joy to their lives right now, but if they delay too long, it will be too late to enjoy God’s good gifts. Turn to God now, he urges,

before the days of trouble come

and the years approach when you will say,

“I find no pleasure in them”—

before the sun and the light

and the moon and the stars grow dark,

and the clouds return after the rain;

when the keepers of the house tremble,

and the strong men stoop,

when the grinders cease because they are few,

and those looking through the windows grow dim . . .

the sound of grinding fades; . . .

[and] men are afraid of heights

and of dangers in the streets. (Ecclesiastes 12:1–5)

Behind his poetic expressions lies the reality of age’s toll on our minds and bodies: declining strength . . . failing vision . . . trembling hands . . . arthritic joints . . . forgetfulness . . . loss of hearing . . . loneliness . . . fear of increasing frailty . . . the list seems almost endless. “Nothing works very well anymore,” a friend said to me with a sigh not long ago, and I can sympathize with him.

But is this all there is to growing older? Is old age only a cruel burden that grows heavier and heavier as the years go by, with nothing to look forward to but death? Or can it be something more?

AGING GRACEFULLY

Even if you are familiar with the Bible, you may not recall a man in the Old Testament named Barzillai; our only glimpse of him comes from just a dozen verses (2 Samuel 17:27–29; 19:31–39). He was eighty years old, and no one would have blamed him if he had chosen to spend his remaining days letting others shoulder the responsibilities he had once carried. But he didn’t.

Late in his reign King David was forced to flee for his life from Jerusalem because of a revolt led by his rebellious and arrogant son, Absalom. His desperate flight took him east, into the barren desert regions beyond the Jordan River. Exhausted and almost out of food, he and his loyal band of followers eventually reached an isolated village called Mahanaim. There Barzillai—at great sacrifice and life-threatening risk—provided food and shelter for King David and his men. Without Barzillai’s assistance David and his men might well have perished.

After Absalom was killed and the revolt collapsed, David— out of gratitude for Barzillai’s hospitality—invited him to return with the king and the army to Jerusalem, promising to take care of him the rest of his life. Think of it: an invitation to spend the remainder of his days in the comfort of the king’s palace—and as a friend of the king!

But Barzillai refused. His reason? He said he was simply too old to make such a drastic change: “‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am far too old to go with the king to Jerusalem. I am eighty years old today, and I can no longer enjoy anything. Food and wine are no longer tasty, and I cannot hear the singers as they sing’” (2 Samuel 19:34–35 NLT). Old, feeble, and deaf, even the invitation to join the king in Jerusalem—an opportunity he doubtless would have jumped at a decade or so sooner—held no attraction for him. Old age had taken its toll.

Why does the Bible record this brief incident from the life of one obscure old man? It isn’t just to remind us of the ravages of old age or even the brevity of life. Instead the Bible recounts it to tell us a significant fact: Barzillai’s greatest service to God and His people—the one deed from his entire life that was worthy of being recorded in the Bible—took place when he was an old man.

When King David and his fleeing band of men approached, Barzillai easily could have said to himself, “I’m too old to get involved in this. Let the younger men help if they want to—they have all the energy. And anyway, I’d be a fool to take what I’ve saved for my old age and spend it helping King David and his men. Absalom might attack us and plunder our village if we assist David. Why bother? Why take the risk? At my age I have enough to worry about.”

Instead Barzillai took the lead in organizing help for the beleaguered king. The Bible says Barzillai and his friends “brought bedding and bowls and articles of pottery. They also brought wheat and barley, flour and roasted grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds, sheep, and cheese from cows’ milk for David and his people to eat” (2 Samuel 17:28–29). Think of all the organization and sacrifice that must have gone into this effort! Barzillai saw a need, and he did everything he could to meet it in spite of his age and infirmities. If he had failed or if he had refused to help, David and his men might well have perished in the inhospitable desert beyond the Dead Sea—and the subsequent history of God’s people would have been vastly different. But he didn’t fail, and King David’s life was spared.

The point is this: as an old man Barzillai couldn’t do everything he once did—but he did what he could, and God used his efforts. The same can be true of us as we grow older.

That Great Cloud of Witnesses

Barzillai is not the only person in the Bible who made his greatest contribution in his latter years. In fact, Scripture is filled with examples of men and women whom God used late in life, often with great impact.

In the centuries before Noah and the flood, the Bible tells us, God gave great longevity to His servants. Adam lived a total of 930 years; Methuselah—the oldest person in the Bible and the grandfather of Noah—died at the age of 969. All of his life Methuselah’s father, Enoch,