I haven’t been this excited about a birthday since I was a child. Today I turn 60 years of age.

“What?! How can that be exciting?!”

Good question. I’ve been trying to answer it. Part of it might be something I see in myself, as I relax into a fresh freedom, with less striving. Part of it might be something I saw in my Dad as he moved his way into his 60s with a low profile, enabling, facilitating role – telling me once that ‘my most strategic years began after I turned 60.’

I hope that happens to me.

[BTW: this is a sketch I saw in Zimbabwe and just had to buy it!]

But by far the biggest part is something I see in God. He has been faithful to me. In the spirit of a little phrase in a passage from which a friend preached earlier this week – ‘Remember your journey’ (Micah 6.5) – I’d like to celebrate some ways in which God has been faithful to me, praying that it might reverberate in the lives of others and bring them encouragement.

God created me

Because I grew up with a mum and dad who loved me, that truth about God – ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3.1) – did not arrest me in quite the same way it does for so many others. But what did stop me in my tracks was the discovery that I was a creation of the creator. Time and time again, I look now at some of the most gorgeous spots in creation and reflect on how, in God’s mind, me:myself:I sits easily in the same frame. God’s eye will not look past me, chuffed as he is with his handiwork in making me. Truth be told, as one who bears the image of God and so is stamped with dignity, he takes more delight in me than those gorgeous spots. Sure, sin came along and stained stuff, but I must not forget what was around in God’s design before the arrival of sin. As one whose frailities and weaknesses are ever before me, this has been a transforming truth. It is not just about looking forward to the cross, it is about looking back to the creation.

God chose me
I had my moments as a child. Because I was different from them in various ways, my siblings used to tease me that I was adopted. While I don’t lose sleep over this anymore, I am not going to deny that it hasn’t had its consequences. I tend now to pull up the chair a little closer and lean forward when I hear people talk about being adopted, as I did a few weeks ago. The person expressed it so well: ‘because I’m adopted, I have a fuller sense of being chosen’. It’s true. Chosen – and so ‘choice’, as we’d say in New Zealand. Yep, I reckon the adoption-talk has opened up for me a heightened sense of being chosen – chosen-by-God and so choice to him. As my biblical understanding has grown, I realise now that I’ve been chosen ‘before the creation of the world’ (Eph 4.1). So, remarkably, ‘God chose me’ occurs even before ‘God created me’. What a thought! One other consequence is ever before me. It is the bond that forms so readily when mixing with others who know they are chosen by God, especially among those with whom I appear to have so little in common. Barriers like age, ethnicity, and language melt away as this rare joy of belonging together, being chosen together, takes over and friendships proliferate.

God draws me
Once created and chosen, there has been this astonishing sense of God drawing me through life. I was raised on the dictum that the Christian life is a ‘trust and obey’ life – and that is what it is. Walking with God day by day is how he teaches us to trust him. But it is not a random, aimless walking going on. We don’t just walk with God, we walk towards God. God draws us into his future for us. It is the image of a rope where God holds on to one end and we hold on to the other. He never loosens his grip. And I am ‘Reformed’ enough to believe that he is even the one who helps me hold on as well. Then he draws me, even pulls me through that life, with its despairs and delights, gently leading me into the future he has for me. The metaphor means so much to me. And being drawn by him into marriage to Barby – and then on into being a father to Stephen, Alyssa, Martin, Bethany and Joseph has been so special.

However there are other features with this ‘drawing’…  Do you mind if I linger here for a bit? I’ve never felt ambitious (not that it is wrong to be so, as that JO Sanders’ talk on ‘God-sanctioned ambition’ alerted me all those years ago). I’ve never really applied for a job (not that it is wrong to do so, obviously). Vocationally, I’ve never ever had times when my eyes have been on something that might seem to be better, or bigger, for myself. If anything, it has been the opposite. I test my commitment to serve God, by imagining myself being willing to be called back into specific situations in my past, like once again pastoring a small church in Invercargill, on the south coast of NZ’s South Island. Along the way, odd things have happened, as God continues to draw me. In an early decade, the call to cross-cultural work was so strong. At 20 and 21 years of age, I facilitated two groups in consecutive years, one at university and one at church, through which around 25 other people travelled into cross-cultural work … but not me (or Barby) for another thirty years. Odd, but that is OK because God was drawing me. In a middle decade I was drawn into the leadership of a theological college, having little leadership experience, being the youngest on the full-time staff, being the first principal in five decades appointed from outside, and into a college that was not even my natural theological habitat at the time. Odd, but that is OK because God was drawing me. Even in this recent decade, with my core, enduring call to be a preacher – and even helping now to lead a preaching ministry with a global reach – I am rarely preaching anymore. Odd, but that is OK because God is still drawing me.

God keeps me
He draws me in a way that keeps me. He holds me. He is adhesive in the way he has me stick to him. The rope comes with railings that stop me from falling. I’ve needed it. I am an enthusiast as well as a ‘tank’ person – just loving all that can fill me up, but also finding that I drain so readily as well. Coming quickly to mind, as I write, is the time when a counsellor listened and then summed me up, telling me of my need for ‘replenishing friendships’. Without them I can become a bit of a melancholic and so I need the adhesive God to keep me. I may never have really applied for a job, but I sure do remember times, in each one of those jobs, when I’ve wanted desperately to quit – but not doing so because of the adhesive God who keeps me. One of the hardest things in leadership is that ‘leaders do not always get to tell their story’ (as I read in a friend’s book manscript last week). It is so true. Having the adhesive God who keeps sure does help at those times. On other occasions that sense of depletion, when it is mixed with disappointment, can lead to anger. It is not pleasant to see this in my heart! An untimely word at such a time can end a ministry. Such a word is like toothpaste. Once it is out, it cannot go back into the tube. Yes, I am thankful for the adhesive God who keeps here as well!

At one point in Paul’s letters, he lists all these qualities with which we are to ‘clothe’ ourselves – compassion, kindness, humility, patience – and then ‘over all put on love’ (Col 3.12-13). I find it hard not to think about actual overalls here.

As I clothe myself with the creating and choosing, drawing and keeping God, then the overalls are his grace. Indian believers come to mind. They preface every piece of good news in their lives with ‘by God’s grace’. As I hit 60 years of age, ‘by God’s grace’ will do me just fine as well.

nice chatting

Paul