Thriving in Your Fourth Quarter

God has great things in store for us as we grow older and will use us mightily in our later years.

I’m getting old. Can God still use me?  

I get tired more quickly. Will God renew my strength? 

My body is weak. Can I still accomplish all that God has for me?

God has never failed me; why would he now? The longer our history with God, the more we have seen miracle after miracle. We wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for God’s keeping power. But we may ask, “Why has he kept me here? Is there a purpose for me in my senior years?”

Every time I get out of a chair, unrequested grunts slip out of my mouth. The volume on the television won’t go any higher, and I ask my wife, “Did he just say, ‘Chime up flat chills?’” “No,” she responds. “He said, ‘Climb up that hill.’” My impaired hearing and bad knees remind me that things aren’t as easy as they once were. Should I slow down then, ease up, and resign myself to a life of discomfort, weariness, and even irrelevance?    

Having been through the school of hard knocks, many of us have overcome youthful lust, self-ambition, and misguided endeavors. It seems just when we have become more experienced, wiser, and more needed than ever, we are fed a lie that this is the season of decline and decay. We wrongly feel that we have little to offer; we might as well pull up a deck chair on a cruise ship.

Let me declare that you are still needed on the battleship. You are not geriatric; you are a general. The military has no twenty-year-old generals. It takes time, experience, fortitude, perseverance, and wisdom to become a general. Privates may be fresh and energetic, but generals have won hard-fought battles. They have wounds and scars and are battle-weary, but when they receive their stars, it’s not the time to quit. A general who vacates his office too soon will leave those under him without a leader. Now is the time; you are still needed!

A Lifetime of Preparation

God loves to take a lifetime to prepare us. He invests in us, building us into mature individuals, and instills in us wisdom and understanding. There is no time limit for our promises to be fulfilled and for us to reach our highest calling.  

Abraham and Sarah were in their nineties when God determined that they were the right age to raise the next generation of leaders. Just like us, they thought they were too old for something brand new. Jacob was well over one hundred years old when he leaned on his staff and blessed his grandchildren (see Hebrews 11:21). At eighty years old, Moses was just getting started. God told Joshua that he was very old, then directed him by saying, “Yet there remains much land to possess” (Joshua 13:1, ESV).

I believe God has a purpose in store for us in our senior years. I have amazing older friends who are as strong as ever, running with horses in their fourth quarter. Evangelist Nicky Cruz is getting up there in age but staying in the race with power and anointing. The chairman of our board, Barry Meguiar, is in his eighties and runs circles around me. He seems like he’s in perpetual motion. When my grandmother was alive, she physically slowed down in her mid-nineties; yet she remained passionate about God and could offer words from heaven that would rock your world.

Seventy-five is the average age of those who make our ministry possible through their giving, which helps establish orphanages and provides life-saving relief to widows. Some of our most generous donors are in their eighties. I have visited many of these saints, and I can tell you that they are not giving up, sitting back, or wasting their best years; they are strong, engaged, sharp, hopeful, and incredibly generous. God has done so much good for them, and now they are living with purpose to bring that good to the world around them.

Sometimes it takes a lifetime to prepare something wonderful. Flowers grow yet fade quickly, while redwoods mature over centuries with a long history of faithfulness in the same direction. Zeal comes quickly; wisdom requires longevity. You can do more with wisdom than youthful energy. You may wish you had the energy you had at thirty, but with wisdom at sixty or even ninety years old, you can accomplish more with less. Years ago, a gray-haired man told me, “Gary, you’re using twice the effort to get half the results.”  You can get twice the results with half the effort when you’re moving in the Spirit rather than your own energy.

Finishing Strong

I have often heard that the Christian life is like a marathon, not a sprint. But I believe it is like sprinting a marathon. Many elite, marathon runners run at an average pace of 4 to 6 minutes per mile. Kelvin Kiptum’s world record run had an average pace of 4 minutes 36 seconds. For most of us, that is a sprint beyond our ability even for a single mile. It may seem impossible to maintain a sprint in a life span of eighty or ninety years; however, Jeremiah the prophet speaks of those who once became weary walking with the foot soldiers, who are now running with the horses. Like Elijah, with the Holy Spirit’s power, we can outrun chariots at any age.

At the 1968 Olympics, an hour after the marathon winner had won the race, Tanzania’s John Stephen Akhwari limped across the finish line. Early in the race, he was injured in a fall. When asked why he didn’t quit, he said, “My country did not send me 7,000 miles to start this race. My country sent me to finish.” So it is with God. He doesn’t send us to start the race; he sends us to finish and win it. Sometimes the race is filled with pain, but God wants us to run through it and finish strong. Scripture says, “Let no one despise your youth” (1 Timothy 4:12, NKJV).  It could as easily acknowledge, “Let no one despise your advancing years.” The fourth quarter in any sport is always the most exciting. It is the time when everyone on the field is going all out. It’s called the final lap, not the last limp. The most important part of the race is the finish line.

My good friend Carter Conlon and I are getting older. Yet we encourage each other often with the phrase, “Let’s finish this thing strong!” It’s easy to start strong, but it’s harder to finish that way. Yet the Bible is full of men and women who finished stronger than they had started. Moses sent Caleb to spy out the promised land. Caleb was faithful his entire life and finished strong. Scripture shows his powerful proclamation to Joshua.

“And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. 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. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim 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” (Joshua 14:10-12).

Three Lessons from Caleb

1. ‘The Lord has kept me alive.’

• Have you felt like you’ve outlived your usefulness? Remember that it is God who has kept you alive because his purpose for you is not yet finished.
• Before King David died, he completed his final calling by bringing his son, Solomon, to the throne. Imagine if he’d checked out, didn’t care, and said, “I’m too old to be bothered with all this drama.” No, he served God’s purpose to the last breath.

2. ‘I am still as strong.’

• Without a battle to fight or a victory to be won, all that is left is a sedentary, aimless, and irrelevant existence.
• For some, the battle might be fighting lethargy, not surrendering to the voices that say you have nothing left to offer. Paul said, “Fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 1:18), but he didn’t put time limits or age restrictions on it.   
• Those who wake up wanting and desiring will have a passion and a goal that drives them. With this desire, we can be tired with bones creaking and muscles aching, yet we will have a strength that comes from God.

3. ‘I shall drive them out.’

• In his advancing years, Caleb still had the fire in his bones to not only hear what God was saying but to respond to the high calling: “I shall drive them out.”

Revival Among Older Believers

Why is it that when we think of revival, we tend to think of young people and college-age students? Why not the greatest move of God through the older generation? If God brought an awakening among those of us graying, I believe we would be experienced enough and faithful enough to pass the torch to the next generation. While younger people are often occupied with new careers and raising families, older believers could give their all to this last day’s awakening. A revival among older believers could be the most sustainable and longest-lived in American history.

The prophet Elijah’s mission was “to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). True, lasting revival must involve both older and younger generations, each turning to care for the other. So allow me to encourage you to hear what God has in store for you in this most critical season of your life, and declare to God and the world, “You shall do all that the Lord commands.” Age will not be a hindrance. Amen! ▉