Perhaps you’ve heard of older folks who don’t have the same story to tell. Aging, it seems, can be such a hard thing. I certainly cannot speak as an expert on it because I have several decades to go (hopefully!) before needing to think about turning in my car keys and moving into an assisted living facility. But when I got to a page in John Mark Comer’s latest book, “Practicing the Way,” I couldn’t help but think about my grandma.

He said:

Writing about hell, C. S. Lewis claimed that all of us are on a trajectory to either life or death, and the farther we follow that trajectory, the more pronounced its effect on us becomes. He said we are either becoming “immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.” [Dallas] Willard argued that death just seals the trajectory of the road, or “way,” we chose in life. … 

Case in point: elderly people. Most people over the age of eighty are either the best or the worst people you know. Hear me; I do not mean this in an ageist way. Just the opposite, in fact. Most twentysomethings I know are just kind of mid, as my teenage kids would say. They aren’t saints or potential terrorists; they’re just normal. This isn’t true of most elderly people I know. Run through your mental Rolodex of people past eighty: Most of them are either the most gracious, happy, grateful, patient, loving, self-giving people you know, just happy to be alive and sitting in the room with you, or the most bitter, manipulative, spiteful people you know, oozing emotional poison into their family lines and reveling in others’ pain. Sure, some are in the middle of the bell curve, but most are noticeably to one side. 

That’s because they’ve spent almost a century becoming a person. Being formed. Through some strange, invisible chemical reaction of habits, mindsets, chosen attitudes, life circumstances, suffering, successes, failures, and random events, they became who they are.

When I read these words, I thought about my grandma immediately. She had spent 93 years becoming a person—being formed. And guess what kinds of habits I witnessed as I watched her? My grandma was in church every Sunday. She taught and attended Sunday School and Bible studies. She got involved with serving at the church whenever she could. She prayed for people faithfully! She read her Bible every single day. And even when she was unable to attend church regularly in the last couple years of her life, as soon as my mom delivered the Sunday bulletin to her, she would sit and sing through each verse of every hymn from the service on her own. 

So was it a coincidence that she set a beautiful example of aging with grace? I’d say no. My grandma had spent decades being spiritually formed into who she was, and all those years of Christ-centered habits enabled her to shine His light as both her mental and physical strength weakened. Obviously, as Comer stated, this doesn’t hold true for 100% of elderly people, but it certainly was accurate in my grandma’s life, and maybe you know of a personal example, too. 

I’m guessing that not many people reading this are in their 80s or 90s… Which means you’re still in the stage of life where your habits, mindsets and chosen attitudes are actively forming you into somebody. So how are you being formed? What trajectory are you currently on? If you were to freeze your current habits, mindsets and chosen attitudes and continue them in exactly the same way for the next 40-50 years, would you be on the pathway toward becoming an “immortal horror” or an “everlasting splendour?” As Comer pointed out in the same book, you are being formed—there’s no question about that. The question is, who or what are you being formed into? Is Jesus at the center of who you’re becoming? If not, what changes can you make so that He is? 

As we celebrated my grandma’s life, so many people shared about the spiritual example she set and how her Jesus-centered life helped to encourage them in their walk with the Lord. And guess what? Her daily habits, mindsets and chosen attitudes over the course of nine decades all contributed to the way her life was a testimony to Jesus. It wasn’t a decision she made real quick at age 85 when she realized she was getting up there in years and wanted to leave an eternally significant legacy; it was a daily decision she made each day throughout her life (to the best of her imperfect abilities). 

I share with you about my grandma today so that you might be inspired to take a closer look at how you are being formed! I am doing the same. I’m evaluating the little parts of my day-to-day routine that are slowly but surely forming me into a person. What kind of person? Hopefully and prayerfully somebody who is on a trajectory toward everlasting joy.