Paint the Town Red Parade
October 2, 2025
Tim Richards
Danish study has found that individuals over 40 tend to imagine themselves as being 20% younger than they actually are. Kenneth Peterson wrote about this in his April 7, 2025, “Our Daily Bread” devotional. For example, a 45-year-old lady likely sees herself as just 36. I am 65, and from this perspective, I think I am 52. The problem with my thinking is that although I see myself as 52, my 52nd birthday was really celebrated 13 years ago in 2012.
When is a person old? The answer to this question has undergone significant change over the last 175 years. When I researched the average American’s life expectancy on statista.com, I learned it was just 39.4 years in 1850. By 1925, a century ago, it had increased to 58.6 years. Today, the average lifespan stands at 79.6 years, indicating that Americans now live significantly longer than they did in the past. If this trend continues, by the end of the century, life expectancy is projected to increase by almost ten years. Nevertheless, while these statistics are interesting, they do not alter the fact that of every 100 people born, those same 100 will eventually die.
How do these advances in life expectancy change our perspective? Most of us have witnessed people who made a spectacle of themselves by trying to act younger than they really were; however, I suspect the opposite problem is more common. We have seen people who act much older than they are and become prematurely set in their ways. These individuals often slow down and “check out,” living stagnant lives and making little effort to keep up in our rapidly changing world.
Many quit living long before they die. A Bible story comes to mind, “‘I am an old man now,’ Isaac said, ‘and I don’t know when I may die… Prepare my favorite dish, and bring it here for me to eat. Then I will pronounce the blessing that belongs to you, my firstborn son, before I die.’” (Genesis 27:2, 4, NLT)
It seemed Isaac was being a responsible father, calling his son in so he could share some wise final words. However, Isaac did not die until well over 20 years later, as recorded in Genesis 35:29. Like Isaac, none of us knows how long we will live, but this should not stop us from making the most of each day God gives us. We must not fall into the trap of quitting too soon. As my own father told me soon after learning he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, “I cannot change the way the disease will progress, but I can make the most of today.” Dad did his best to live that way, and the Bible reveals that each of us would be wise to do the same.
