Trusting the Lord in Old Age

“In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. (Psalm 71:1)

We do not know who wrote this psalm. Perhaps it was David, as many believe. David is the recognized penman of the previous psalm. Some say Jeremiah the prophet wrote it. Obviously, whoever was its author he was a person of considerable age and faith.

If you will allow this personal reference, I was twenty-two years old when I answered God’s call to preach. When I turned fifty years, whether or not anyone else recognized it, I had more to offer a church as its minister than I had twenty eight years earlier.

Caleb, of Joshua and Caleb fame, one of the twelve spies who searched out the Promised Land, recognized that he was as ready to conquer the land at age eighty-five as he had been forty-five years earlier at age forty. “Give me this mountain,” he said.

Toward one’s twilight years a child of God has learned through many trials to trust the Lord more and more. That’s where this psalmist was. That’s where all older Christians should be.