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Age & Maturity

Age & Maturity

Age & Maturity

http://www.age&maturity.devotions@fertiileground.com/restinme

https://devotions.age&maturity@fertiileground.com/restinme

2021 May 31

"Like a shock of corn fully ripe" (Job_5:26).

A gentleman, writing about the breaking up of old ships, recently said that it is not the age alone which improves the quality of the fiber in the wood of an old vessel, but the straining and wrenching of the vessel by the sea, the chemical action of the bilge water, and of many kinds of cargoes.

Some planks and veneers made from an oak beam which had been part of a ship eighty years old were exhibited a few years ago at a fashionable furniture store on Broadway, New York, and attracted general notice for the exquisite coloring and beautiful grain.

Equally striking were some beams of mahogany taken from a bark which sailed the seas sixty years ago. The years and the traffic had contracted the pores and deepened the color, until it looked as superb in its chromatic intensity as an antique Chinese vase. It was made into a cabinet, and has today a place of honor in the drawing-room of a wealthy New York family.

So there is a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived flabby, self-indulgent, useless lives, and the fiber of those who have sailed all seas and carried all cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men.

Not only the wrenching and straining of life, but also something of the sweetness of the cargoes carried get into the very pores and fiber of character. -- Louis Albert Banks

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we ourselves boast in the hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also boast in tribulations, realizing that tribulation brings forth endurance, And endurance brings forth character, and character brings forth hope. And the hope of God never makes us ashamed because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which has been given to us. For even when we were without strength, at the appointed time Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, although perhaps someone might have the courage even to die for a good man.
(Rom 5:1-7 AFV)

When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set; the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure. And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight. Such a man cannot die out of this world. When he goes he leaves behind him much of himself. Being dead, he speaks.

-- Beecher

The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good; and the wicked man out of the wicked treasure of his heart brings forth that which is wicked; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
(Luk 6:45 AFV)

When Victor Hugo was past eighty years of age he gave expression to his religious faith in these sublime sentences: "I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are livelier than ever. I am rising toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but Heaven lights me with its unknown worlds.

Winter

Winter

Winter

"You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple."

You will increase my greatness and surround and comfort me on every side. I will also praise You with the harp for Your truth, O my God; I will sing praises unto you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, and my life, which You have redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of Your righteousness all the day long, for those who seek my hurt are confounded; they are brought to shame.
(Psa 71:21-24 AFV)


I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD; I will speak of Your righteousness, even of Yours alone. O God, You have taught me from my youth; and until now I have declared Your wonderful works. But now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me until I have declared Your strength to this generation, and Your power to everyone who is to come.
(Psa 71:16-18 AFV)