“Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing” (Ps 92:13-14). Our old folks need prayer! Unless one keeps life’s roots deep in the soil of the Lord’s presence, it’s easy for old plants to dry up.
In a letter from Charles Darwin to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, dated June 17, 1868, the naturalist wrote: “I am glad you were at the Messiah [Handel’s oratorio], it is the one thing that I should like to hear again, but I daresay I should find my soul too dried up to appreciate it, as in old days; and then I should feel very flat, for it is a horrid bore to feel, as I constantly do, that I am a withered leaf for every subject except Science.”
Remember the sad description given in contrast to the tree rooted by the river: “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away” (Ps 1:4). No need for the believer to have age spots on the soul when “the inward man is being renewed day by day.”