Retirement mediations

June 10, 2013    Titus 2:3-5 Older women

I  can’t believe that it is over a half a year since I have written here, but thanks to a partial retirement, from my full-time role as Dean to part time role as online teacher, I think I can get back at this. There is no denying that I am an older woman now, so I thought I would spend a little time meditating on this passage – perhaps taking several days to look at it.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

reverent in behavior: 1) befitting men, places, actions or sacred things to God; 2) reverent  Strongs=G2412&t=KJV >

Older women are to behave in a way that is reverent, honoring to God as sacred or holy.  I wonder what that kind of behavior looks like, how different it would be compared to my own behavior.  One would think that after 66 years of behaving this way, or behaving in a way that I would hope has been changed over the years to be more conformed to the image of Christ, I would be “humbly” confident that I am doing OK.  But as I meditate on the word sacred, I am not sure OK is the right adjective to describe my behavior, or is it?  Or is it even the standard to which I should aspire.

The expression OK might describe a shirt I wore once, but it is OK to wear again – not as fresh and clean and unwrinkled as when I first hung it in my closet, but I can get another wear out of it.  The first time I wore the shirt it was with confidence; I knew it would make a good impression.  The second time I wore it, perhaps I would not want anyone to look very close.  Is that what OK might look like in my own life when I consider how reverent I live?  “Just don’t look all that close.”

If it is, then there is a problem.  Reverence or sacred means more than OK.  It should allow for close inspection.  It should invite imitation. It should point others to God, or at least make them curious as to why I would want to live in such a way that my life shows what it means to worship God in heart and soul and mind.

Oh most wonderful and merciful God, help me this day to think on what reverence should look like in my life today.