James 24:7

I taught Psalm 71 not long ago.  This is a paraphrase I put together after I meditated on the fears associated with growing old and weak.

Psalm 71

Lord, I am hiding out in you. Please don't ever expose my nakedness or let anyone know of my sad situation.  

You are right.  (How could you be otherwise?) You always do what is right and always (maybe, I should add 'eventually') put things right.

So, if you will, please come and get me out of this mess I'm in.  Lean way down so you can hear my weak and failing voice and lift me up.

Be, to me, what others have said you are: a hide out, one that is hard to find, one that is impossible to penetrate.

Be a rock, a big rock with a hollow place where I may take refuge.

You have to help me because I am in the grip of bad people, folks who are unfair and mean as snakes.

And You, Lord, are my only hope. 

I trust only you because, well...because it's just in your nature to be trustworthy.  That's not just something I think and it's not just some theological abstraction cooked up by folks with bigger brains than mine.

I've seen it my whole life.  You have been trustworthy from day one. 

You were there in the steady hands of the doctor who received me into the world.  (You showed up just in time!) 

You have been as faithful as my old dog who used to trot ahead of me when I stayed too late in the woods behind the house, the one who always glanced back to see that I was still close behind.

How could I not worship the One who has loved me from before my birth and tromped with me my boyhood trails?

But, I have to tell you, Lord.  Lately folks have begun to watch me.  (Or maybe in my weakness I have just noticed that they are watching me!)  They  read me like a gypsy's tea leaves. 

Even though I praise you all the time and have little  on my tongue but worship songs, I still feel the fear. 

I am old and I confess that I sometimes think you might shake me off like a dog shakes off fleas. 

(The world sure shakes me off.  I am afraid of becoming as useless to you as they say I am to them.)

I am not as strong as I used to be and not nearly as productive as I once was. 

I hear them,Lord...listen...do you?

One gets with the other and says, "See how weak he is and how alone?  It would be nothing to jump him and take everything he has.  How easy it would be to kick in his door and beat him!  Who is there to help him?"

Lord, my God, you must be closer than the voices in my mind; nearer than those who haunt my dreams. 

Kick their tails, Lord! 

Strip them naked and let the world see them for who and what they are.  Make them a public spectacle of shame- these 'men' who would harm the weak and profit from the defenseless.

And if you will do that..why I will go on like I always have- well, almost always have...hoping in you and singing your praises to anyone who will listen. I will number your innumerable deeds of kindness to anyone who will lend an ear. (They may grow tired of hearing it but I sure won't grow tired of telling it!)

I have a lot of work to do, Lord...that is if I'm going to number the Innumerable and describe the Unfathomable to a new generation. 

Whatever you do, don't forget me as I am turning old and gray. 

I know you always do what is right.  And I know you are always faithful.  But I also know that you are free to do what you do when you take a mind to do it.

(Your freedom...that's the part that scares me, Lord.)

I'm an old man and have seen many things.  I can say with authority there is nobody like you!  You've let me see a whole lot in my lifetime- ups and downs and twists and turns- and you have always seen me through.

I know you will be there to help me live an honorable life and you will comfort me in my old age.

I tell you what, O God.  I am going to get out my guitar and sing songs about old dogs and my good God; songs about fidelity and goodness and yes... even freedom.

Every so often I may holler like a wild man. I may bay at the moon and shout at the sun when I think about your faithfulness and the way you always do what's right to set things right.

And I may laugh like a fool as I watch you chase those home invaders from my front door!