Too often we tend to determine a person’s effectiveness by the number of years they have lived. In early life people are not old enough – in later life people are too old.

One night Lynn and I were hosting a group of young couples in our home. During the course of the conversation a beautiful young lady commented that she knew that I was scheduled to be preaching in her hometown of Eufaula in the near future. She told me that her grandmother always worshiped with us by television. I inquired about her name and address and told her I would love to go by and visit her grandmother.

While I was in Eufaula her dad offered to take me to visit his mother. I had a charming visit with a wonderful woman. She was in her 90’s, but seemingly more alert than I!

Then an interesting thing occurred. She said, “John Ed I am sorry you missed meeting my Sunday School teacher. She was just here visiting me, but had to leave.” She then told me that her Sunday School teacher was 100-years-old and that she had to leave because she had a computer class at the Community College at 1:00 that afternoon!!

Wow – a 100-years-old and taking a computer class and teaching Sunday School. I understand that today that Sunday School teacher has moved to Florida to be near her family, but at 105 is still very active.

Recently I read about Viola Katie Krahn who lived in Laguna Woods, California. She was 101-years-old and still competed in swimming and diving competition. At age 101, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame!

She admits that at 101 years of age, she is not quite as good at diving as she use to be. She was proud of the fact that she recently won her age group category in diving – she then said that she was the only one in her age group who showed up to dive! She said that now she just goes out to the end of the board and pushes off!

I remember my Dad, at age 90, coming to preach at Frazer. He announced to the congregation that he knew I would have to retire in a couple of years, so he wanted to go ahead and put in his application to replace me!

Someone once said, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” It is a great way to look at age.

Age is more of an attitude than it is a number of years. The number of years we have lived is not nearly as important as what we are doing with those years. The older we get, the more effective we ought to be in all aspects of what we do. We have more experience and ought to be smarter.

Every person needs to finish strong. At the end of his life Paul was able to say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

How old are you?