One of my elders approached me last week and asked if I would consider teaching a class of teenagers. "Sure.  I will teach them.  But will they listen.  That is the question. Will they listen to a 76 year old lady?  It's been twenty years since I worked with that age group."

He promised me that they would.  Personally, I doubt that.  There is an age, somewhere along the way, that older people become invisible.  I remember when I was in my thirties that my mother told me that she missed being a part of "things".  "They drop you," she said.  "They quit asking your opinion.  They don't include you anymore when a decision is being made."

"Who is this 'they' that you are talking about?" I asked her.

"The next generation.  I don't think it is intentional, but when you totter when you walk, or have trouble finding a word, they think you are brain dead, that your opinions and wisdom are outdated."

I told her that she just needed to jump back in and that she had just gotten out of the thick of things, but she said that she had volunteered a number of times.  And now that I am older, I am amazed at how right she was.  In many churches the voice of older people is dismissed.  Contrary to God's word.

I will try to teach teenagers.  Maybe they will listen.  I certainly have something to say.  And stories to back it up.  Everyone loves stories.  I am going to give it a try.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Deuteronomy 32:7 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask you father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you."

Wisdom takes time to obtain.  You don't have very much of it when you are twenty.  Problem is, you think you do.  That makes it hard to listen.  You will never regret listening to the voice of experience.