I glean so much from the Desiring God blog that I have to hold back from linking to it almost on a daily basis. Today John Piper’s topic was “Christ is the Staff of Old Age.” I particularly loved this part of his quote from Samuel Rutherford:

Therefore I commend Christ to you as the staff of your old age: let him have now the rest of your days; and think not much of a storm upon the ship that Christ saileth in; there shall no passenger fall overboard; but the crazed ship and the sea-sick passenger shall come to land safe.

Those of us who are in what I affectionately call our “declining years” are not meant to sit in Adirondack chairs on the shore waiting for the surf to come in, or as in my case, in a rocking chair on my front porch watching the pine trees sway in the breeze. Tempting as it may be at times to tell ourselves that we’ve just about put in our time and deserve a rest, God calls us to do otherwise. Children used to sing, “With Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm as we go sailing Home.” Out of the mouths of babes and Samuel Rutherford, we hear the same truth. In our sea-sick, crazed-ship voyage, He does not forsake us, but is the strong, sure staff that we can lean upon as we declare His truth to the next generation.