OLD SPIES DON’T RETIRE

Ihave a friend whose birthday is about 10 days before mine. We were born the same year, and this year is one of those dreaded “decade” birthdays.

I remembered his natal day and shot him the typical happy birthday email with no reference whatsoever to our age. The email must have pinged his iPhone because he called soon after. Soon into our conversation, he was bemoaning us crossing the decade marker and talking about old age and retirement.

All of his lamenting caused dark clouds to gather over my heart about my growing maturity. Then I recalled something I’d read years ago about longevity that stopped me from counting in reverse, or marking my birthdays by counting only the decades — something that made me adjust my thinking.

It’s an easily overlooked story about a man named Caleb. Maybe you know about this fellow; his story is partially told in Joshua 14 of the Old Testament. As a 40-year-old, he had a career in espionage. He and 11 others were sent to slip into the land of Canaan, check out the situation and report on the prospects. He and another fellow submitted the “minority” report, believing they could occupy the territory. The other 10 said, “No way!”

His career was not even close to over at this young age.

Fast-forward 45 years to another encounter with this same man when he stood alone trusting God and announcing his steady opinion that they could overcome the giants who’d inhabited Canaan. In his the later years of his life.

He is a model for me to follow as I pass the latest decade marker. You and I should aspire for that life. A long life with purpose and courage lived in obedience to the Lord own words, Caleb says, “And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming.”

Did you see that? Caleb may have actually been saying those words on his 85th birthday. He did not let the clouds obscure the sunshine of his long life. He looked at himself and said, “Bring it!”

Caleb was up in years, but he was not over the hill. That’s obvious from his next words: “So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the giants were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”

He wasn’t even close to thinking about retirement. Here is a man with a vision for is not something we ought to sit in the recliner and pipe-dream about. It is attitude and action melded together in the core of who we are. I’m going to wear my hiking boots on my birthday this year just so I can remember Caleb’s example. I’m not sure I know where to find any giants’ butts to kick, but I’m gonna go looking, and start a list of names.