Yesterday was Senior Adult Emphasis Day at our church. My message was based on Proverbs 20:29: “The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old.”
The point of this simple verse is that older people are just as beautiful as younger people, only in a different way. After the message, I received the following by e-mail form one of our church members. I only wish I had of had this one when I was preparing my message, as it would have fit perfectly with the theme.
I hope you enjoy it. It is titled “Old Barns and Old People”.
A stranger came by the other day with an offer that set me to thinking. He wanted to buy the old barn that sits out by the highway. I told him right off he was crazy. He was a city type; you could tell by his clothes, his car, his hands, and the way he talked. He said he was driving by and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass and wanted to know if it was for sale.
I told him he had a funny idea of beauty. Sure, it was a handsome building in its day. But then, there's been a lot of winters pass with their snow and ice and howling wind. Also, the summer sun has beat down on that old barn till all the paint's gone, and the wood has turned silver gray.
Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet, that fellow called it beautiful.
That set me to thinking. I walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing at that old barn. The stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country home that he's building down the road. He said you couldn't get paint that beautiful. Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms and the scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood like that.
It came to me then. We're a lot like that, you and I. Only it's on the inside that the beauty grows with us. Sure, we turn silver gray too. And lean a bit more than we did when we were young and full of sap. But the Good Lord knows what He's doing. And as the years pass, He's busy using the hard weather of our lives, as well as the dry spells and the stormy seasons too, to do a job of beautifying our souls - one that nothing else can produce. And to think how often folks holler because they want life easy!
They took the old barn down today and hauled it away. To beautify a rich man's house. And I reckon someday you and I'll be hauled off to Heaven to take on whatever chores the Good Lord has for us on that Great Farm in the Sky.
And I suspect we'll be all the more beautiful then for the seasons we've been through here. And just maybe even add a bit of beauty to our Father's house. May there be peace within you today. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. And I do sincerely thank God for my wonderful friends and family who care about me even though I show all the signs of weathering life!
Well said!
The point of this simple verse is that older people are just as beautiful as younger people, only in a different way. After the message, I received the following by e-mail form one of our church members. I only wish I had of had this one when I was preparing my message, as it would have fit perfectly with the theme.
I hope you enjoy it. It is titled “Old Barns and Old People”.
A stranger came by the other day with an offer that set me to thinking. He wanted to buy the old barn that sits out by the highway. I told him right off he was crazy. He was a city type; you could tell by his clothes, his car, his hands, and the way he talked. He said he was driving by and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass and wanted to know if it was for sale.
I told him he had a funny idea of beauty. Sure, it was a handsome building in its day. But then, there's been a lot of winters pass with their snow and ice and howling wind. Also, the summer sun has beat down on that old barn till all the paint's gone, and the wood has turned silver gray.
Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet, that fellow called it beautiful.
That set me to thinking. I walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing at that old barn. The stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country home that he's building down the road. He said you couldn't get paint that beautiful. Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms and the scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood like that.
It came to me then. We're a lot like that, you and I. Only it's on the inside that the beauty grows with us. Sure, we turn silver gray too. And lean a bit more than we did when we were young and full of sap. But the Good Lord knows what He's doing. And as the years pass, He's busy using the hard weather of our lives, as well as the dry spells and the stormy seasons too, to do a job of beautifying our souls - one that nothing else can produce. And to think how often folks holler because they want life easy!
They took the old barn down today and hauled it away. To beautify a rich man's house. And I reckon someday you and I'll be hauled off to Heaven to take on whatever chores the Good Lord has for us on that Great Farm in the Sky.
And I suspect we'll be all the more beautiful then for the seasons we've been through here. And just maybe even add a bit of beauty to our Father's house. May there be peace within you today. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. And I do sincerely thank God for my wonderful friends and family who care about me even though I show all the signs of weathering life!
Well said!