Gray Hair

Isaiah 46:4 Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

Have you ever noticed that our society rejects gray hair! There is a prejudice against people with gray hair. Just walk down the hair color aisle in Walgreens and you will notice that one of the options for hair color isn’t gray! You can get just about any other color, but not gray.

And there are commercials for products to hide the gray. What kind of plot is this against one of the natural functions of aging. Why can’t we accept that we change over time. The LORD is the only One who doesn’t change, and we aren’t Him!

The real question is: where does the color from our hair go? Well, for most of us the color shows up in spots on our skin! Well, that solves two mysteries of the human body.

What most of us with gray hair have gained far outweighs the color we have lost in our hair. Most of us have at least gained a little wisdom, collect understanding from success and failure. “That won’t work” rings true because we have seen that fail, whatever the ‘that’ is. Because we have survived, we know a thing or two.

The LORD uses this knowledge to help out His people. Through Isaiah the prophet the LORD reminds His people that He has been with them from the beginning. It was He who started them as a people in the first place. It was He who called their ancestors to become a holy nation, a separate people, dedicated to living differently that all the other peoples on the Earth.

He had been with them in the beginning and He wasn’t about to abandon them even at this late stage in their collective life. Although they were a remnant, a very small part of what they once were, the LORD would still sustain them, carry them, rescue them. Even though most had forsaken the LORD and gone astray in their faith, the LORD still remained ready and willing to intervene on their behalf.

But it wasn’t only for His people that the LORD acted. He also acted on behalf of the nations of the world. Israel was to be a shining beacon of hope for the nations. They were supposed to be able to look at Israel and know the best way to live in this world. The chaos of rejecting the LORD’s rule would be contrasted with the obedient submission and blessing that Israel was promised.

You see, the LORD’s plan to have a people represent Him has never stopped being His plan. We are His image-bearers, after all. He wants a people in obedient submission to His will. When that happens then the LORD’s blessing can rest on us.

So if you have gray hair, rejoice! You lived long enough for aging to show. And if you have spots on your skin, rejoice! You haven’t died from many of the things that killed previous generations. And if you feel like the LORD has abandoned you, He hasn’t! Rejoice! The LORD never abandons His people. Even in Exile, the LORD was with His people, encouraging, calling to repentance, giving hope for the future.