Nick Fawcett (devotional and reflective writer)

There comes a time in our lives, sooner or later, when it dawns on us that we are not as young as we used to be, and for many that has forcefully been impressed on them by the coronavirus crisis, as they suddenly find themselves deemed ‘at risk’. Whereas the future once seemed to stretch out in front of us indefinitely, suddenly it seems all too short, the time left to us, to do all the things we once dreamed of doing, far less than we thought. To be confronted with that truth is profoundly painful, yet we cannot avoid it, however hard we try to hang on to the last vestiges of our youth. Time and tide, as they say, wait for no man. Yet, in the context of faith, the passage of time should not be seen as the years running out so much as life moving on, one more step along an unfolding journey in which there is always more to be discovered and new joys to be experienced. Of course, we will sometimes remember the past with a tinge of regret, and look ahead to the future with a degree of anxiety, but – as this session from my early book Are You Listening? makes clear – we shall also recognise each day as God’s gift, and live each one of them in the assurance that nothing will ever separate us from his love made known in Christ. (If you’d like to hear me reading this session, please click on the link below.)

Read
Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath. Surely everyone goes about like a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; they heap up, and do not know who will gather. Psalm 39:4-6

And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you. Psalm 39:7

Reflect
I’m getting older, Lord;
one by one the seconds are ticking past,
and the days drifting by.
I never noticed it before,
for life stretched out before me,
exciting,
rich with promise,
full of untold possibilities.
But now it’s different,
for time has stolen up and caught me unawares,
and all of a sudden I find myself
looking back as much as forward,
yearning for bygone moments,
morbidly treading the aisles of memory
instead of anticipating new horizons.
I try to stop it,
frantically filling the present moment,
but before I know it a week has gone,
a month has passed,
a year is over.
Lord, I never realised how short life is,
how brief this fleeting span of ours,
but I see it now all too starkly,
and I’m troubled.
You see, I thought I would feel different,
that I would change in tandem with the years,
but I haven’t,
and there’s no sign I’m going to.
The hair may be thinner
and the brow more furrowed,
the limbs less supple and the energy diminished,
but I’m still the same person I always was –
a youngster looking out through ageing eyes.
Lord, I’m getting older,
and I don’t like it,
I don’t like it at all.

My child,
don’t be afraid,
for there’s joy as well as sorrow as the years go by.
Yes, it means time is passing,
and there is pain in letting go and moving on.
Yes, there are memories mounting up
one on the other,
each of them precious, yet tinged with sadness.
And, yes, there is less time ahead of you
than there used to be,
the realisation of your mortality
growing ever more stark
and harder to bear.
But it’s not in the past or the future you live –
it’s the present,
the here and now.
You’ve glimpsed that truth but misunderstood it,
turning it into threat instead of promise –
a fact to dread instead of welcome.
Remember, my child, that each day is a gift,
every moment within it needing to be lived
as though it is your first and your last,
for whether you are seven or seventy,
young or old,
there is always joy to discover,
and blessing to find,
beauty to glimpse,
and love to share.
Each day I am with you,
every step of your way,
and when the journey is over
and the curtain falls,
I will still be with you,
taking your hand and leading you onwards –
what seemed the end, a new beginning,
another chapter,
where life will beckon for all eternity.