Growing Old.. Gracefully?

I found a web site which lists the oldest people living today. When I checked it I read of a lady who was 115, and another that was 125, and then some lady I think from Peru that was supposedly 140!  There was a picture of this lady and, yes, she looked every bit of 140.  Of course I am not sure how we can really know she is that old (count her wrinkles like the rings on a tree?), but there is no doubt she is very, very old.

​So segue back to Genesis after Cain kills his brother Abel we move on to a ‘a whole-lotta-begetting’ going on. God’s command to “go forth and multiply” was one command mankind took to heart well beyond just knowing their times tables!

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But old in Genesis is a relative thing.  People in Genesis times lived to be sometimes 800 or 900 years old.

Adam lived to be 930 years old after God created him on the 6th day Genesis 5:5. His son Seth was 912 Genesis 5:8, Noah later on in Genesis we learn lived to be 950 years, and the long in the tooth award winner is .. Methuselah... the oldest man in the history of .. HISTORY. Methuselah was cut down in the prime of life at the age of 969 Genesis 5:25-27

I figure if I eat my veggies, drink milk, get 8 hours of sleep a night along with daily exercise and in only 907 more birthdays I will have Methuselah beat.  That will be in the year.. 2928 when I am neighbors with George Jetson.

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They say you are only as old as you feel and I find this to be very little encouragement some days when feeling 'Genesis5esque' old.  Maybe not Methuselah old, but at least somewhere in the mid 500s.  and to think they did not have Ibuprophen.
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The other interesting pattern of this was how old people were still.. um.. still.. ‘begetting’. While one of today’s serious society concerns is teen pregnancies, this was not the problem with society recorded in Genesis. 

In Genesis 5 it was not unusual for a couple to wait 70 to 500 years old before starting a family.  I guess those 500 years were spent playing golf, world travel using up trips to Hawaii, paying off the mortgage(s), credit card debt, or marking hot yoga off their bucket list. 

Maybe women in Genesis 5 wanted a career as a shepherdess, garden mogul, or working as a Mary Kay Cosmetics specialist before settling down and having kids. ​

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Note: This parenting trend even held true even after Noah came onto the scene. 

At age 500 Noah had three sons, and when he was about 600 years old when the Lord told him to start his Desert Ark Marina, and from what I read his sons helped with this process. 

Ok, so picture this - 600 year old Noah, and his three 100 year old sons building a very big (BBIIIGGG) boat.  Five hundred years old!?  That would be like Columbus still being around, and working with those old people I found on that web site to build an ark.  Of course Columbus may understand boats, BUT.. HE’S VERY OLD AND VERY DEAD, and those people from the website are VERY OLD and will be dead soon enough.

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I do believe these stories we read about in Genesis, but in our modern world I have trouble picturing this Old Testament culture.  But then again, I suppose IF Noah reappeared in the desert near the city of Las Vegas (aka Sin City), he would most likely sigh and say, “I better get busy building another ark in the desert again because society is certainly going to Hell.” (insert pun here).

​Let me close these early chapters of Genesis with a few more images sharing a Back Pew perspective. 

• Before Salt Lake City Lamech  was living with his daily double, 
• Enoch walked with God, and was no more. And finally
• the Nephilum. The Hebrew word for Nephilum  is “Fallen ones (maybe angels who smoked)”.. and they were certainly fallen... “fallin’” for the women of Earth – and God was not pleased.​

So while it is hard for me to grasp the fact that I am 63.. a Methuselah like age (969) boggles the mind.  But like so many things in the Bible, just because I don’t understand does not make it not true.  

​From Genesis through Revelation I find the evidence and promise of God’s love and grace.
From the Garden to the Flood to the Cross all the way through life today sitting in my Back Pew there is this promise and evidence of a loving God.

May God bless each of you today in ways that are beyond your dreams. I pray you place your faith and hopes in the one true God of our Bibles.

Jeff (Methuselah like aches & pains) Larson