I’ve always said that age does not mean wisdom. Age ≠ Wisdom.
And we all know this because we’ve met 70 year old fools. We’ve met 50 year old people who we look at with a sharp side eye and when we hear them speak we can’t help but think, “Do you really believe the words that are coming out of your mouth?!”
I remember one of the first times in somewhat recent history that I thought that. It was the maintenance guy who worked at my apartment building, and his thoughts and ideas around voting were so absurd that I thought “You’re too old for this!” Oftentimes when people are telling me a story about something that is foolish, or silly or absurd, or simply unwise, I cock my head to the side and ask “How old are they?” It’s not that it matters, but it’s like I’m searching for something because I want it to make sense because the math ain’t mathing and I want the math to always math! Yes, 2+2=4, but so is 10-6 and 8×0.5 and 20/5, ya know?
But sometimes, the math people do to get to 4 is like 1 + apples + yellow = circles = 4 and I’m just like, sir, fruit + color + numbers don’t go together. This is not that! I want the math to math and you also will hear me in everyday vernacular, say the “math ain’t mathing”, people be people’ing and you’ll most definitely hear me say “God be God’ing”. Because even when the math does not in fact, math, God is literally always God.
I was speaking with the sister friend the other night, and she pointed me to this passage:
I said, age should speak and a multitude of years should teach wisdom. So let it be heard. But there is a vital force, a spirit of intelligence and man and the breadth of the Almighty gives men understanding. It is not the great necessarily who are right wise, nor always the age who understand justice.
Job 32:7-9 Amplified Bible Classic Edition
What I wish I knew in this world and implore everyone else to know that just because someone is older than you does not mean that they are wiser than you or smarter than you or more knowledgeable than you. It simply means that they are older than you!
As a child, I used to think that my parents were right about everything. And then somewhere in my late teens, I realized, actually, it turns out that they’re just people who have lived longer than I. It doesn’t make them always right. It doesn’t make them always good. It just makes them people.
So be discerning! Use wisdom. Listen to that still quiet voice in your spirit deep within you the one that makes you uncomfortable, the one that gives you a spiritual nudge right in the depths of your chest that says “hey, you know that’s wrong… Hey, you know that’s not true.” Listen to that instead because what I know to be true for not just me, but for literally everyone is that the God within us will guide us to the truth. I didn’t need someone to tell me what the truth was as a child because I felt it in my body. And now as an adult, I still feel the truth within me.
And so I hope that as you continue to age, as we all continue to age, we will choose to age with wisdom. We will choose to age and let the vital force within us give us understanding and give us wisdom and let us know justice.
