Your Best Years

Your Best Years

Isaiah 43:16-21

            When were your best years?  I have a friend whose best years are long gone.  When I’m with him he speaks most often about the past—past good times, past events, past friends.  Even when he brings these relationships up to date the past still overshadows everything else.  He seems to have no present and no future.

            Every year the TV sports networks make a big deal about high school stars in football and basketball (especially these two sports) and where they’re going to college.  I suspect that if, four years later, you looked at the lists of starters at major colleges, you’d find a lot of those names missing, and a lot of new ones added.  Same thing for college stars turning pro.  Many people follow the pro drafts like they were the most important events of the year.  But how many of those drafted actually play pro ball?  Frequently we read of a former Heisman Trophy winner who disappears from the NFL, not good enough to make it even as an average player at that level.

            How do we account for this?  Are the experts so wrong in their evaluations?  Certainly that’s part of it.  Like experts in so many other fields (finance, government, the media) they are often proved wrong by actual results.  Much too frequently we read of stock market results that were higher—or lower—than the “experts” predicted.  But there’s something more basic at work here.

            I believe that we each have a time when we reach our best years.  Some athletes, some students, some members of the social scene reach their peak in high school.  When we meet them at reunions years later we find they couldn’t adapt to the higher level of performance required of college students.  The same is true of people who have outstanding careers in college.  Many never quite become successful in the world of work, whichever field they choose.

            Israel had been going through an extended bad time.  Several evil kings in a row had dragged the nation down.  Bigger, stronger neighbors had wiped out the northern kingdom entirely.  All that was left was tiny Judah.  Too many times these wicked kings had corrupted their people instead of being shepherds.  Too many times they had become involved in bad alliances with other countries.  The final humiliation was exile.  Anyone of worth had been taken captive to Babylon and forced to live under the watchful eye of their captors.  You can experience the peoples’ despair in Psalm 137.

            But God wasn’t finished with Israel yet.  There were more good times to come.  Through Isaiah, God says, “Forget the past.  Stop dwelling on the old stuff.  Look!  I’m going to do something new.  It’s already beginning.  Do you see it?  I’m going to provide water where there is no water:  streams in the desert, and rivers in the wilderness.  My people will have enough to drink, enough to satisfy their thirst, both physically and spiritually.”

            Israel still had many good years left.  So do we.  Christians must believe that our best years lie before us. I’m not talking about our future in heaven.  Of course those years will be the best.  I’m talking about our lives here on earth.  As we grow in grace and in our knowledge of Jesus Christ, and feel ever more strongly the Holy Spirit’s presence, our lives should grow better and better.  We should be so overwhelmed by God’s presence that day by day we grow to be more like Jesus Christ.

            So…when were your best years?  If you say, “The ones still ahead of me,” congratulations.  You haven’t peaked yet.  God still has new things in store for you.