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PROGRAM D-8324
As one gets older, I find staying young becomes an ever-increasing thought, wish, and desire. If there were some fountain of youth that could fulfill its promise to keep me young, I’d be the first one in the water.
Unfortunately, we can’t slow down the calendar and aging is what it is. The Apostle Paul wrote that even though he was “wasting away” outwardly, it didn’t dishearten him because he was being renewed inwardly day by day. So, I’ve been outlining steps you and I can take to find the spiritual fountain of youth—to do what we need to do to be renewed every day on the inside.
Here’s a really important fourth step from Isaiah 43:18-19: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
If you want to be forever young on the inside, you’ve got to let go of the old things and let God do a new thing for you. Whatever wilderness you’re in right now—whatever dry desert that has no water—God is ready to do a new thing for you. If you’re not “perceiving it” and can’t see what it is, could it be because you haven’t put the past behind you? Are you still “considering things of old”—wishing life was like it used to be? Or perhaps your past holds so much pain and hurt that you just haven’t been able to forget those former things.
Either way, you’re missing the new thing, and that new thing which God has for you will refresh and invigorate you. I don’t know what it is. It could be a new place for you to be. It could be a new person God wants to bring into your life. It could be a new ministry that he wants you to do—whatever! But I promise you that the new thing God has for you will bring you out of that wilderness and it will renew you on the inside—make you feel young again!