What if we could enjoy the wisdom of age and experience and the vibrancy and beauty of youth at the same time? Would you like that? The Bible says that’s God’s desire for us.

God created us to live forever. But since the fall our bodies decay with age. Paul compared life in these bodies to camping in temporary tents. He reminds us that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:1-9).

I’m thankful God promises new bodies that will surpass the best our current ones can offer even in their peak. The change will be better than trading a rusty bicycle for a new sports car that has more power, amenities, and pizazz. We won’t change from an ordinary caterpillar into a souped-up one with faster legs and a more exotic color. The change will be more like going from an ugly caterpillar to an exquisite butterfly.

Reading Paul’s description of our resurrection bodies in 1 Corinthians 15:35-50 reminds me of flower bulbs. Consider an amaryllis bulb. Without prior knowledge, no one could look at that drab bulb and imagine the beautiful flower waiting to blossom. Our resurrected bodies will surpass our present bodies even more than the amaryllis flower outshines its bulb. We’ll experience beauty, health, wisdom and agelessness.

As an amaryllis is still connected to the bulb, so our new bodies are related to this present body. We will feel right at home in them, because we will finally be home. Our seemingly impossible longing for the best that both youth and age can offer will become reality—forever strong, lovely, wise, and mature.

Aging with Reurrection Hope

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV).

What hope! Every new creak, wrinkle, or loss reminds us that though the outer body is wearing out, it will be renewed. To live in that hope, we must focus:

• Not on what is seen – wrinkles, gray hair, bum knees…,
• But on the unseen – the promises of God, the hope of heaven,
• Not on what is temporary – this body, this world,
• But on what’s eternal – heaven, Jesus, His Word, loved ones.

Then we won’t lose heart. For the believer, the best is yet to come.

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Blessings,

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