Listen

"Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?" Job 12:12

We live in a culture that reveres its youth and ignores its elders. Nearly every other culture does the opposite and is the richer for it. We are the poorer for having put our grandparents in retirement villages, far away from grandchildren who don't know the wisdom they are missing by not having Grandpa and Grandma around.

The things we can learn from our elders are limitless. They were born in a time that was very different from our own, and their perspective on life can be of great value as we struggle wit our daily lives in this fast-paced, unsettling era. Imagine for a moment: A person born at the end of the last century would have lived through the First World War, the Great Depression, yet another world war, and the suburbanization of America. A telephone would have been a rare thing in the home of their childhood; now their grandchildren can have phones in their cars, their purses and their pockets.

Life has changed at a speed never seen before in human history. More than ever, we need the sagacity of those who lived in a slower time.

Are the elders all gone from your life? Look around - people who have lived rich, full lives are sitting near you in a pew, at the train station, in a nursing home. Ask them questions. Listen, really listen, to their answers. Let them teach you with their stories.

By Bernie Sheahan, taken from "Women's Devotional Bible 2"