BILLY
ON AGING

Topics: Death; Example; Great Commandment; Life; Mortality; Old Age; Perspective; Priorities; Seasons; Time; Waiting on God

References: Genesis 15:15; Deuteronomy 34:7; Psalm 71:9; Proverbs 16:31; Matthew 22:37–40; Luke 2:25–38; John 13:34; James 2:8

Anne Graham Lotz recounted a conversation with her father, Billy Graham, on the subject of aging. “All my life, I’ve been taught how to die,” Billy told her, “but no one ever taught me how to grow old.”

She replied, “Well, Daddy, you are now teaching all of us.”

Lotz said she has already learned from her father: “When you get older, secondary things, like politics, begin to fall away, and the primary things become primary again. For Daddy, the primary thing is, as Jesus said, to try to love God totally and to love our neighbor as ourselves.”

—Jon Meacham, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Newsweek (August 14, 2006)