"Don't go in those weeds, Elliot!" Anna shouted from where she was digging in her garden. Sometimes Anna thinks she is her brother's mother, but I digress.
She went running over to where Elliot was walking in the tall grass. The whole time they were walking back, she was scolding him. "Now, Elliot," she said. "You shouldn't go in there. There's ticks and things like that in there. I know Zeus goes in there (Zeus is our dog), but Zeus is a lot older than you are."
The biggest difference between Zeus and Elliot is not that Zeus is four years older than Elliot (that would make him 6 years old, or 30 in dog years), but that Zeus is a dog and Elliot is a boy. But, when you are a child, you equate everything to age. My mother wouldn't let me chew gum till I was nine years old. I couldn't drink coffee till I was fifteen. I couldn't drive till I was sixteen.
Age isn't "just a number," as some people say. It is something very real. But it doesn't tell the whole story either. At the end of Luke chapter two, it says that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man." It doesn't mention the fact that He got older, because of course, everyone gets older.
There comes a time in most people's lives when they would be OK with stopping having more birthdays and just maintaining a particular age. It doesn't work that way.
The question for me, isn't whether or not I'm old enough to do something. I hit that age awhile ago (although I have a little while to go before I can order from the senior menu at Bob Evans). The question is whether I am still growing -- in wisdom, in love, and in my daily walk with God.
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