The Elderly Psalmist

Oh yes I qualify as old:

I look down and see the breakfast crumbs on my sweater that is inside out. My new sneakers fasten with velcro. Sometimes my voice warbles. As dear departed Den used to say, "Eh!"

Old and also a psalmist, like the singer in Ps 71. Despite vulnerability and waning powers we draw on strength that has grown out of knowing God since childhood. God has "taught me since I was young" and today I praise Him more and more.

"I shall praise you more and more....You strengthen me more and more." (vv. 14, 21). I feel it, I do. In church I feel those roots growing out of my feet down through my personal history of worship and through the history of the People of God at prayer. I feel it, I do: a strength that only comes from putting in the hours, from years and years of going to church, reading the Bible, and saying the prayers. God continues to give new life.

So when you see me warbling on my lyre, smile. I'm enjoying the Land of Beulah, which is the place where the Pilgrims rest.*

*John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1954), pp. 304-5.