When you are old

Joel 2:28 (ESV)

“And it shall come to pass afterward,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams,

and your young men shall see visions.

(Acts 2:17, ESV)

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

 and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams;”

I thought of this Scripture today, particularly the phrase, “Old men shall dream dreams.”

This is a work of the Spirit.

When you are old, you stop dreaming. When you are young you have dreams. The possibility of everything is in front of you. But when you grow old, when you have lived through pain and disappointment, when every good thing seems behind you and not in front of you, …

you stop dreaming.

When you are old, now you know. You know you are never going to fulfill those youthful dreams. Your day is gone. The time is past. You stand on a mountain of missed opportunities and failures, knowing that your days on this earth are soon gone. Your dreams have evaporated like a summer rain or become nightmarish perversions and carnival mirrors of what was once beautiful.  The hopeful heart has an expiration date long past. Like milk gone bad, life now has a sour smell and no future at all.

When you are old, your life is pouring down the drain….but then the Spirit comes.

The Spirit, brooding over the dark waters of your heart, speaks the Word and brings a new day. The Spirit breathes a wind of freshness and hope into the old and hopeless.  He is the promised Spirit and the Spirit of Promise. He is the Spirit who allowed old Sarah to give birth to laughter, and old Elizabeth to give birth to the one who would prepare the way for the King. He is the Spirit that promised Simeon he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He is the Spirit that comes and fills and fills and fills.

When you are old, because of the Spirit, there are dreams to dream.