Video for January 22nd, 2026
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
Someone a little older than me told me the other day that they have instituted a new rule at dinner parties about the length of organ recitals. Observing my puzzlement that their house wasn’t big enough for a pipe organ, and as far as I knew they had no musical friends, they explained further. By organ recital they meant the litany of complaints about each other’s deteriorating health. They had agreed it was to be limited to 15 minutes each time! A few months previously I had had to stop myself in conversation with a friend on the phone when we realised we’d spent the previous half hour talking about our own ailments. I have recently passed one of the main markers of aging myself. I got a senior citizen’s discount to visit the zoo with my grandchildren the other day. Frankly, I had expected a bit more than they were giving off the price of the ticket.
As we get older, the myth of control is increasingly exposed. Much in our culture seeks to persuade us that we have much more control over our life circumstances than in fact we do. Good diet and exercise can lengthen our health span, but it can’t put off the inevitable for ever. Many of us will know people who died suddenly, apparently in the best of health, of conditions of which they were ignorant and over which they had no influence. They simply drew a bad genetic card. Wise financial stewardship can prepare us for retirement and give a buffer against financial shocks, but the interconnectedness of the global financial system mean that major financial shocks affect everyone, however prudent.
No one can rage against all this – many do, entering old age grumpily and full of resentment. Reinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer, often paraphrased at AA meetings (and misattributed to St. Francis), is a good one to pray regularly to stave this off, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”. Taken as it is its good pop psychology, the sort of thing you’d put on a Facebook post. However, the rest of the prayer is rarely quoted. “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace; taking as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to his will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life”.
Contemporary society sees little value in suffering of any kind. Yet the way of Jesus embraces our interaction with life’s disappointments and pain as a significant part of the way we are formed into Christ’s likeness, as much if not more so than the familiar spiritual disciplines. Job’s journey is a paradigm of this. From a place of success by every contemporary measure his life quickly descends into hell – quite literally. He suffers alone. Neither his wife nor friends can provide any rationale for his suffering much as they try, ending up blaming him for his lot in life, perhaps to deal with their own confusion. By Chapter 23 Job is spoiling for a fight with God himself. In verse 2 he says, “even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what he would answer me and consider what he would say to me”. Operating from a spirit of entitlement that a life of ease can easily inculcate, he effectively demands God should justify himself. Contemporary culture screams at us through every channel that the world should revolve around us. We are not well prepared for the challenges of declining health that accompany aging. The human demand that everything should go our way crashes against the rocks of biological reality. However, in this challenge as with any other that life throws at us we are comforted by the promise of the Lord’s constant accompanying presence. We never suffer alone. All our life experience takes place within the envelope of hope. “In all things God is working for good in those who love him”, says Paul in Roman’s 8. The greatest good is to be prepared to know God and enjoy him for ever. This is where ultimate fulfilment and joy is to be found. A spirit of entitlement is just another manifestation of pride – the root of all sin. As Dr. Larry Crabb said in the title of his masterful book on Ruth, Shattered Dreams – the unexpected path to joy, serenity and peace may require a dealing with reality as it is not as we demand or even wish it should be.
+Richard