Seventy-Five Years Young (Genesis 12:4b)

Meditations on Genesis #31

Genesis 12:4b

Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

The author of Psalm 92 writes these inspiring words in verses 12-14:

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.

That last line really stands out to me as I ponder the fact that God calls Abram at the age of seventy-five. It’s as if God purposefully waits till His servant is well past his prime, and retired, and comfortably relaxing with kinfolk, before calling him to get off his rocking chair, pack his bags, and set out on the greatest expedition of his life. Beneath Abram’s white hair and weathered brow, there’s an evergreen heart bursting with spiritual sap, and that’s all God needs to produce a harvest.

During my junior year of college, I remember sitting in the back row of a mandatory Exodus class, tuning in and out of a lecture from my Egyptian professor, Ashraf Basilious, when Ashraf suddenly set aside his notes, looked us all in the eyes, and said through broken English, “Students, God sent Moses into the wilderness for forty years before calling him to deliver His people from the hands of Pharaoh; how long are you willing to wait on the LORD? Will you let Him take you to the wilderness for forty years if He so chooses?”

Part of the reason that got my attention is because I’d been working for two years on a fantasy allegory that was meant to be the first of five novels in a series, and I was anxious to publish it. The thought of God performing wonders through old, white-headed men encouraged me, but it also haunted me, because I really didn’t want to be the guy left waiting. Well, I continued to make progress on my book during my senior year, and that progress culminated in a three-day trip to a private beach where I planned to lock myself away, write the final draft, and come out with a finished manuscript. But instead, I came out with a blank word document. Not blank in the sense that I hadn’t written anything—oh, I’d written nearly 200 pages—but blank in the sense that I’d deleted everything. Unsurprisingly, the very act of deleting so many pages of cherished characters and dialogues and defining moments had me bawling my eyes out like that poor boy with his gun at the end of Old Yeller. Nevertheless, in this particular situation, the deletion wasn’t an act of quitting, but rather an act of waiting. My deficiencies in history, geography, and warfare became apparent during the editing process, and it struck me that I wouldn’t be capable of creating a great fictional world if I couldn’t understand the real one. Upon that realization, the LORD began to stir my heart to apply for an M.A. in Ancient History and Classical Studies at a Welsh university, in order to strengthen those admittedly weak areas, and He enabled me to complete that degree a few years later.

But you know what’s funny? Seventeen years have now come and gone and I’m still nowhere near ready to finish that novel. But by the grace of God, I did start a band after leaving Wales. And by the grace of God, I did marry my college sweetheart. And by the grace of God, Megan and I have been able to bring three precious children into the world, Micah, Skye, and Mariah, along with Shiloh, who the LORD carried home to heaven from Megan’s womb. And by the grace of God, I was able to work with wonderful painters and even dabble in illustration myself to publish seven children’s books. And by the grace of God, I’ve been able to grow in carpentry and gardening and cooking and coaching and teaching and music production and mentoring, and even pursue further degrees in Philosophy and English, and help my dad with his radio ministry. But don’t get me wrong—I don’t say any of that to brag. Quite the opposite! I say that to point out that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are nobler than our thoughts, and His visions for our lives far surpass the visions we have for ourselves. But let’s play devil’s advocate for a minute here. What if my wildest, most worldly ambition had actually come true? What if instead of deleting all those pages at that beach house, I published them, and they immediately became a New York Times’ bestseller, and every scholar and literary aficionado this side of the Mississippi lauded it as the greatest Christian Allegory since The Pilgrim’s Progress, and all the Lewis and Tolkien purists publicly burned their sacred copies of Narnia and Lord of the Rings to signify my book’s superior craft; well, even that outcome would utterly fail to attain to the mundane but miraculous, commonplace but communal, broken but beautiful volumes that Almighty God has added to my undeserving life in its place.

“Behold, I am doing a new thing,” says the LORD in Isaiah 43:19. “Even now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?” Oh friend, God is always at work, always breaking new ground somewhere in the world and in you, always moving, never resting, always sowing, never sleeping, from the very first moment He reached down into the dirt to fashion Adam to this present moment where He is reaching you through these meager words. Take comfort from the knocking of Heaven on the door of a seventy-five-year-old man who was just getting started in his fruit bearing enterprise, just barely getting going in his life of faith, not even knowing that the greatest, most productive miles of his spiritual advance were still ahead of him.

Likewise, for you, a new day dawns, and fresh, never-before-seen marvels beckon, and unblazed trails await, and the very God Who authored your story in ages past is outside the door of your heart waiting to lead you by hand into an unparalleled next chapter.

I took the above photograph at Harris Lake the other day, trying to capture the height of the trees that shade my writing endeavor, and the scene reminds me of one of my favorite Aesopian fables called “The Travelers and the Plane Tree.” In that fable, a group of journeymen grow fatigued by the blazing sun, search for shade, and eventually take rest under the branches of something called a Plane Tree (not to be confused with ‘plain’). However, once the men get settled, they start criticizing the Tree for her lack of fruit and her insignificant buds and her dull foliage, which leads the poor, bewildered Plane Tree to lecture them on their ingratitude. Well, the point is a bit on the nose, but it’s worth reflecting on. How often do we critique the generations that preceded us and find fault with their methods and decry their shortcomings, overlooking the crucial fact that the only reason we can look down on them at all is because we stand on their shoulders? Godly young saints should look up to godly old saints the way I look up from my writing bench to these old trees. With gratitude that these companions over my head, and their roots under my feet, are still bearing fruit and still green and full of sap and still providing shade for my own God-given toil under the sun.