The Best is Yet to Come

It has become a cliché.  “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  That philosophy holds currency in Sun City where the average age is beyond seventy.  In our congregation that average is above eighty.  But here’s what I’ve learned living here in Sun City.

Age isn’t a number as much as an attitude.  Some of the most “ageless” saints are people with the most years already lived.  None of us are physically able to do the things we could when we were younger.  But a visit to one of the rec centers will dispel any notion that older people are unable to be active.

Several years ago Carol and I were invited to attend a workshop at Ghost Ranch.  Ghost Ranch is one of three camp and conference centers affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.  We joined a broad cross-section of the church.  There were theologians, persons recovering from substance abuse and some whose relationships had ended.  Some were counselors to the recovering who needed self-care.  All of us were asking how the church’s traditional resources: theological, therapeutic, and relational were helping or missing the mark for people experiencing traumatic change. 

In our first session the group leader gave us an exercise designed to “break the ice.”  She invited each of us to answer the question: “What decade or year or moment would you say was the best time in your life?”  She asked us to describe that moment with as much detail as we felt comfortable sharing.  As we went around the circle the responses were typical.  Everyone described significant milestones.  Graduating from school, meeting a spouse or significant other, birth of a child, the date one entered a 12-step program, the date one “graduated” from a 12-step program, were some of the responses.  We learned a lot about one another, but I will never forget one person’s contribution.

She was sitting in the circle where she would be one of the last to comment.  And when it was her turn, there was silence.  All of us waited expectant, wondering what she would say, some maybe a little nervous.  When she finally opened her mouth she said, “Today is the best day of my life.”  She taught us with that comment that the best days of our lives aren’t over.  They are always in the moment or yet to be.

In theology we say that God’s timing is right now and not yet.  What that means is that God in Jesus Christ has changed everything and is changing all things until the end of time.  The human tendency looks back at significant events and concludes perhaps that the best has already occurred.  But God’s history, God’s timing, reveals the best is yet to come.  In our own lives, for the church, for the future, the best is yet to come…..thanks be to God!

~Harrell