(1 Tim 4:12 NASB) "Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe."
If the wisdom of life should ever alter that which concerns the eternal in a man to the point of changing it into something temporal, then this would be folly whehter it be spoken by an old man or by a youth. For in relation to the Eternal, age gives no justification for speaking absurdly, and youth does not exclude one from being able to grasp what is true. Should someone explain that the fear of God, in the sense of that felt in this world of time, should belong to childhood and therefore disappear with the years as does childhood itself, or should be like a happy state of mind that cannot be maintained, but only remembered; should someone explain that penitence comes like the weakness of old age, with the wasting away of strength, when the senses are blunted, when sleep no longer stregnthens but weakens; then this would be impiety and folly. Yes, to be sure, it is a fact that there was a man who with the years forgot his childish fear of God, was swindled out of the best, and was taken in by that which was insolent....When it happens, it is a horrible thing. And even if a man should become a thousand years old, he would not have become so old that he dares speak otherwise of it than the youth - with fear and trembling. For in relation to the Eternal, a man ages neither in the sense of time nor in the sense of an accumulation of past events. No, when an old person has outgrown the childish and the youthful, ordinary language calls this, maturity and a gain. But willfully ever to have outgrown the Eternal is spoken of as falling away from God and as perdition; and only the life of the ungodly 'shall be as the snail that melts, as it goes' (Psalm 58:8)."
The things that are of God are beautiful no matter what age the person is who they are manifested in. While the things that are of this world are destructive and disgusting no matter what age the person is who they reveal themselves through.
It seems like the older you get the more your real self comes out. Older people seem to quit going through the hassle of trying to appear as they ought and just appear as they want. The problem is when they haven't spent their life trying to become who they should be. I have encountered incredibly beautiful old people, and I have encountered incredibly ugly old people. No matter what age we are, the only things that matter are the things of God. We all, no matter how old we are, need to set example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. A life that excels in that is beautiful no matter what age the person is.
Watch out for the potholes.
