August 5, 2004
A Bitter Attitude
Read: Deuteronomy 32:44-52
Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today . . . . It is your life. —Deuteronomy 32:46-47
Bible In One Year: Psalms 68-69; Romans 8:1-21
Great emphasis is being placed on living longer and better. Advances in medical science are making it possible for more and more people. Yet in spite of this, none of us can avoid growing old. One day aging will overtake all of us, and our bodies will shut down.
What is preventable, however, is an attitude of bitterness and regret as we grow older. Look at the life of Moses. When he was 120 years old, he stood with the Israelites before they crossed the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land. He could not go with them because he had disobeyed the Lord when in anger he struck the rock in the wilderness (Numbers 20:12,24).
How easily Moses could have slipped into a self-pitying and resentful frame of mind! Had he not borne the burden of a stubborn and stiff-necked people for 40 years? Had he not interceded for them time after time? Yet at the end of his life he praised the Lord and urged a new generation of Israelites to obey Him (Deuteronomy 32:1-4,45-47).
As we grow older, we can dwell on the failures and hardships of our past, or we can remember God’s faithfulness, accept His discipline, and keep looking to the future in faith. It’s the only way to avoid a bitter attitude. —Dennis De Haan
And life with its stress takes its toll,
Yet beauty and vigor can still be seen
When Jesus gives peace to our soul. —D. De Haan
We cannot avoid growing old; but we can avoid growing cold.
