In recent days, I have been approached... in the farmer's co-op... with questions like, "Is that your natural hair color?" I was told... at a middle-of-nowhere gas station restaurant (of sorts)... that, surely, I wasn't from around here. Surely I was from somewhere out West, like... California. This statement came while I was covered in mud from that morning's pond work! But the best assertion was announced at my hometown hardware store when someone I ran into... someone I hadn't seen in a long time exclaimed... "Danny! What's with the gray beard? YOU GOT OLD!!!"
Now... I've been getting the question about my hair color since I was young. Even the ladies at the pool where I lifeguarded wanted to know what I put on my hair. When I told them it was sunlight... they asked if that was Clairol brand. I've been told I was from California since my traveling consultant days. I guess grown men from Alabama aren't supposed to have blonde hair. But the gray beard guffaws... the "You got OLD" statements that used to only come from my kids when they were trying to pick at Ole' Pop... those are the ones that make me smile and shake my head. They are my reminders that I'm not who I once was. They remind me that... one day... I won't be who I am now.
"For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. - 1 Corinthians 15:52b
When I look back at my old photos, I hardly feel like the same person. I think about who I was... how I felt... what I thought I wanted and about how so much of that has changed. I think about the many things that have happened in the years between then and now; the most amazing of which being the work He has done in me... changing me from the old person to the new... and I can only look forward to the day when my body will be made perfect, as He is perfect. Gray beards won't be an indication of age. Blonde hair won't be considered a characteristic of a Californian. I might not even recognize myself, except that... I will be whole and complete... incorruptible and changed. As Paul said in his second letter to the Corinthians...
"We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." - 2 Corinthians 5:8
So, until that day... I "make it (my) aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him." (2 Corinthians 5:9) I want this body, however aged it may be, to reflect the work of the only One who can change the heart. You can color your hair and you can change your clothes... you can even shave your gray beard to try and hide your age... but He is the only One who can make an old man...
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