O God, you have taught me from my earliest childhood,

    and I constantly tell others about the wonderful things you do.

Now that I am old and gray,

    do not abandon me, O God.

Let me proclaim your power to this new generation,

    your mighty miracles to all who come after me. Psalm 71:17-18

I’ve never imagined David as an old man. He’s always been young and virile in my mind. The warrior king. The conquerer. The lady’s man. The perfectly chiseled body that Michelangelo captured for all time. That is until I came to Psalm 71 and found this, “And now, in my old age, don’t set me aside. Don’t abandon me when my strength is failing” (Psalm 71:9). And he goes on to talk about how his enemies will take advantage of him in this weakened state. Suddenly we have another human image of David as “old and gray,” and I marvel that I never saw this — never even thought of it. Michelangelo did not sculpt this stage of his life. Certainly this is the fate of all our human heroes. We are watching this happen to our movie heroes like Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Michael Keaton, Clint Eastwood — they’re all growing old and gray, but we remember them frozen in time by their images on the silver screen.

And David is the same — a biblical hero who knows no age. But here he is, by his own admission, coming to the final years of his life describing himself as, sure enough — old and gray. And yet, the powerful thing about this self-assessment is that he is not done. He is not hanging up his prophetic voice. In fact, his newly-found purpose and mission at this stage of life is the same as what we are advocating for our older members. With this verse, David has become our champion. “Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, your mighty miracles to all who come after me” (Psalm 71:18). Like David, we are not looking back; he’s looking ahead to the current and future generations of the 21st century.

This is thus a call not just to our older members, but for our younger ones as well, that they might seek and be open to cross-generational relationships where we can all grow and learn from each other. This is a new lease on life for all of us.