Aging in grace and truth

Don’t fear age because it’s an agent of spiritual maturity. That’s the message of Jen Wilkin’s Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World (Crossway, 208 pp.). The 55-year-old Bible teacher and author examines the wisdom we can gain from every season of life, no matter our age—and it’s not the “embrace your inner beauty and avoid cosmetic surgery” message you might expect.

Wilkin describes life as a chiasm—a poetic device used in Scripture to repeat ideas in reverse order. If we draw the curve of a typical lifespan, the ascending seasons mirror the descending seasons: our birth and death, our first and final years of dependence, our gain and loss of independence through adolescence and senior adulthood, caring for our family in early adulthood and receiving care in late midlife. At the top of the arc is midlife, 40–55, which Wilkin paints as a crossroads and place of perspective.

Every life is different, she says, but the principles are universal. She returns to three points throughout the book.

First, the body declines, but people develop. Our exterior continues to waste away, but our interior life can continue to mature until death. The oldest among us may be physically weak but perhaps the greatest spiritual giants. Seek out the elderly. Serve them and honor them. Likewise, lean into your own aging process. Physical weakness can be the greatest maturing agent when we allow it.

Second, do what you wish. Wilkin writes, “Jesus invites us to live lives directed by wishful thinking. Thinking about our own wish list, we then act accordingly to one another.” She distinguishes that while the world says do what you want, the Bible tells us to do what you wish: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). Her clever phrasing made me stop and think: Does Jesus actually want us to “live lives directed by wishful thinking”? Or is that theology too self-focused?

Third, develop “eulogy virtues” over “résumé virtues.” Our culture fixates on “résumé virtues” (skills and achievements) which make a lack of productivity seem like a lack of value. As we develop “eulogy virtues” (character and fruits of the Spirit), Wilkin argues, we live lives of actual value and purpose to our last breath.

While Wilkin’s words grounded me in wisdom and truth, I questioned a few of her attention-grabbing turns of phrase. In addition to “do what you wish,” she pushes even further when she writes “We are [God’s] graven images.” In context she seems to use “graven images” as a synonym for “image bearer,” but I would have appreciated a more precise definition.