Read Psalm 100

Most, if not all, of us can sift through the years gone by and remember a time when we were children. Though it may be a while ago, and though certain memories might be fuzzy, we can with a little effort remember what it was like to be a child. What it was like to look at the world through innocent eyes, what it was like to rely on our parents, what it was like to have a mind like a sponge, soaking in all of our surroundings and feeding off of that knowledge with youthful energy and passion.

Of course, I am sure if we can remember those things, I am also pretty certain we can remember the not so positive things as well. I am sure that, with a little effort, we can remember being told that “children are to be seen and not heard.” I am sure we can remember being scolded for doing this or doing that, without fully understanding why we were getting scolded for behaving no differently than the adults do. I am sure we can remember people talking down to us as if we were too young to understand, or dismissing our thoughts and ideas as if they didn’t count because of our age.

On the flip side, I have seen the opposite occur too. I have seen people who are considered “older” passed off as being irrelevant. I have seen people’s ideas invalidated simply because “they don’t meet up with the times.” I have seen traditions scoffed at because they are “old” or “archaic”.  We all can think to a time when we, or people we know, have made judgments against people because of their age.

Why is it that we are so focused on age? Why is it that a child is passed off as too naive to know what God is calling him or her to do? Why is it that an elderly person is invalidated because they are considered too old to know what is relevant for today’s generations? Does God discriminate based on age? Does God refuse to speak to and through people based on their age or their experience?

In Genesis, Noah was somewhere between 500 and 600 years old when God told him to build an Ark…he was 600 years old when the floods came (Genesis 7:6). God called Abraham to be the ancestor of many nations at the ripe age of 99 (Genesis 17:1).  In Jeremiah, God called the prophet to speak despite Jeremiah judging himself to be too young (Jeremiah 1:6). The author of the first letter to Timothy, instructs the young minister to not let anyone think less of him because he is young, but to “be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity” (1 Timothy 4:12, NLT).

In reality, we serve an ageless God who is not limited by the limitations we place on ourselves and on others. God is neither young nor old; rather, God IS. With that said, God IS calling us, whether young or old, to live in a way that values others. God IS calling us, whether young or old, to live in a way that is humble. God IS calling us to recognize that there are no limitations in God, that all things are possible. God IS calling all of us to knock down our walls of segregation and discrimination and to open ourselves to God’s spirit working in, through and in spite of all of us. Today’s challenge is to answer that call to see God working in and through all people…including yourself.