How old is old?  Have we ever seen someone filled with many years and thought, “Man, he (or she) is really old!”   Now, maybe that person truly is old, maybe that person has lived several years, and maybe that person has a birth year from….a long time ago……like in the 1900s, instead of in the 2000s. Many claim that our lives are organized into three thirds. I was born in 1966 (the 1900s), and I like to call this fifty-four-year-old girl (me)—-a middle aged girl living in her second third of life, striving to live well into her third–third of life (striving to live every day strong and striving to reach the age of 103).
So, does the amount of birthdays make a person old? Does a long-ago birth date, a large number of birthdays lived, make a person old? Today, it will serve us well to delve into this topic of “age” for a moment.
Yesterday was a beautiful day of celebration.—–Three people (I know) celebrated birthdays (21, 49 and 57).

Yesterday was also a beautiful day of celebration because—–One person (I know) celebrated the setting of a life-goal she hopes to keep, a life-goal that also involves me—–the life goal that we will both reach our “elderly” age and that we will enjoy sharing life together, even then, at those elderly ages (her at 71 and me at 103).
Birthdays  & Life Goals.

Birthdays—-How many birthdays do we want?   Have we already lived most?   Do we hope to live several more?   Will our number of birthdays create an “oldness” in our bodies, a decay? And (if we live through another pandemic) will we experience more birthdays because we have taken vaccinations as necessary precautions  Or  Will those vaccines just cause our lives to decay more?
Life Goals—-Are they important for us to write, to ponder for our longevity?  Do we experience more life goals accomplished…..because we live long OR because we go home to eternity, young with our “bucket list” not completed?   Are we setting life goals that are “just for our fun,”…..OR…..Are we setting life goals that “touch the lives of others?” Are we living “selfishly”…..OR…..Are we living to love others?
Unless I have miscounted (and that is always quite possible) today is the 145th day of 2021.   If that is a true calculation, then we have 220 more days to (hopefully) live in the year 2021, and we have the opportunity to (hopefully) celebrate a 2021 birthday (unless we have already celebrated this year’s birthday).
All of these thoughts and all of these questions may seem as a ramble today, and maybe they are….truly a ramble,….but it is a TRUTH: If we do not live our lives with a God-Focused-Purpose, then our lives will be a Self-Focused-Purpose.
WHY IS THAT SO?
If we walk through life with a selfish daily focus, with only a single purpose to serve ourselves and not with a God-Centered Focus, then we are merely choosing to ramble through life with a Self-Imposed-Focused-Purpose.
The Bible is clear.
The Holy Scripture is Life-Directing.
The timeless Word of God leads us to see the opposite of Self-Focused-Purpose. 
The Scripture helps us live a God-Centered-Focused-Purpose…..living within His purpose…..&……walking within each day…….God-focused, God-centered, and totally within God’s will.

In his second letter to those believers living in Corinth, the Apostle Paul was inspired by God to write: “Therefore we do not lose heart,…” (16).  What creates the word “therefore” to be used by the Apostle Paul?

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal”  (2 Corinthians 4: 16-18).

The Bible reveals that we will “therefore” live forevermore because our inner man will be “renewing day by day.”

Today’s date is May 25th, and if my mother-in-law and father-in-law were still alive, they would be celebrating 62 years together.  Just this past Sunday night during class, one young man voiced a written life-goal that he hopes to celebrate a span of sixty years with his beautiful young wife.  A Jubilee Year. They are currently living within their twenties.
Just yesterday, on May 24th, (as I wrote in the paragraphs above) a beautiful woman voiced the life-goal that we should strive to live long enough to both reach the status of “elderly” together.  She is currently twenty-two. So, if we reach her life-goal, in the 49 years remaining, she would reach the age of 71 years young & I would reach the age of 103 (also one of my set life-goals). 

So, we see how the Apostle Paul writes to the young believers living life in the city of Corinth: “Therefore we do not lose heart,” because we know “that He who raised the LORD Jesus will raise us also with Jesus“  (14, 16).

Let us take heart. We may live several more earthly birthdays, and still, our outer man will continue to decay—Truly it is a truth found within God’s Holy Word.
However, “we do not lose heart,” because we know “that He who raised the LORD Jesus will raise us also with Jesus”  (14, 16).

When we choose to Know God, to Believe in the truth of God’s existence, and to Accept Jesus as our Savior, then the Bible reveals that we will live forevermore. WHY?

The WHY is found in the biblical truth that as believers, as Christians…..We will live forevermore.…..because our inner man will be “renewing day by day” because of our close walk with our LORD. We are promised by a most-holy God that we will someday see the eternal things when we see Jesus face-to-face. Until that final day (of this earthly life)…..Let us begin to set Life Goals with an Eternal Focus, AND Let us begin to live this God-Centered-Focused-Purposed Journey, as we walk toward heaven……Today.