Words Grow Wiser with Age

As a middle schooler and high schooler, I remember having big opinions about God, life, relationships, and all the things. I believed my answers were right, and to view things any differently was utter foolishness and absurdity. I had scathing words for people who didn’t agree with me over theology, dating, and clothing choices. I became easily enraged by those who thought contrary to my beliefs.

Whether I was right or wrong is besides the point—because at times I was, other times I wasn’t, and still other times I was partially right and partially wrong at the same time. And there were times that I was right but had the worst heart behind it. 

In our influencer and social media culture, where anyone who knows how to wield the algorithms to amplify their voice, you don’t need gentleness, humility, or even wisdom and the right credentials to be an authority on a subject. Rather than actually gain wisdom and authority on a subject, social media gurus tell us to simply establish ourselves as thought leaders through content creation. Sign up for an MLM business and suddenly you’re a health expert on weight loss, nutrition, and skin care. Listen to a few podcasts and you’re now a professional theologian. Better yet: Experience something for a couple of months (like motherhood or marriage), and you’re now a well-educated person on said subject.

I can write this because I was once one of those people—I was ready to share all my new-found wisdom about marriage in the midst of my first year. I scribbled down words of indictment against “lukewarm” churches when I was in seventh grade. I believed I understood all the nuances of the conversation between Calvinism and Arminianism in only grade nine. I thought I was ready to write a book about anxiety at the age of twenty. I’ve believed I had all the answers countless times in life to only have humility rip the rug out from under my feet. To be honest, at twenty-six-years-old, I am still one of those people.

I stood outside on a humid August afternoon pushing one of my toddlers on the swing. As he giggled in delight at the wind whistling past him and wiggled his feet closer to the sky, my mind meandered elsewhere. I had this thought in the kitchen as I herded my children to the porch for an article I wanted to write. As I pushed my son on the swing, I pieced together my thoughts and felt excitement at this profound and beautiful work I had come up with.

By lunch time, some chaos erupted in my home that caused me to pause and consider those very words I had just concocted. Over the course of a teacup being thrown into the floor and shattering, a dryer knob breaking, my wifi not working, and grilled-cheeses nearly burning to the pan, I began to wonder at the truth and validity of the “profound” words I had just come up with earlier that morning.

After I tucked the toddlers into their rooms for quiet time and nap time, I got on the phone with an older friend and mentor to discuss some of what I had been thinking through. Through our conversation, my entire “beautiful” thought unraveled and I realized how unhelpful it really was—not just to me, but to anyone who could ever read it. 

Though our culture likes to scorn age, it can actually be a good thing for our minds. Age does this curious work where it adds wisdom, which in turn slows our tongues and cools our tempers so we don’t become as outraged as easily. Yet I know that this isn’t the case for everyone, which is why I’m now realizing that it’s not just more years that gives us this kind of wisdom but the God who follows us along those years sanctifying us. He opens our eyes to see the nuances of lives around us that erode the walls we’ve built around our “facts.” He carries us through suffering in which we begin to see that the simple answers we had weren’t all that simple after all. He puts us in relationships with people who differ from us, and our hearts are widened to love those we disagree with and learn to respond to them with respect. 

I’ve sought to be slow to write for most of my online life for this very reason. Those words I had thought up all those months ago turned out to be folly, and if circumstances hadn’t proven otherwise by lunch time, I probably would have written them up and thought them to be pretty insightful. Yet God by his grace showed me their folly quickly and humbled me and taught me a better way through my friend. 

I’m learning that it’s important to wait on our words to give them a chance to bear fruit. Before declaring the wonderful things we have learned through this season and how to cultivate goodness in these kinds of situations, let’s wait and see if beauty and goodness do in fact spring up from the seeds we’ve planted. Give your words and beliefs time to bear their fruit—whether good or bad—before putting them out for public consumption. 

Job asked his friends, “Isn’t wisdom found with the elderly?” (12:12). It was meant to be an indictment against them—for though they were old, they still offered him unwise and unkind counsel. May we not be like Job’s friends whose age did not add wisdom, but let us be teachable under the Fatherly care of God. Let’s take heed, as he presses us so often in his Word, to tame our tongues and quiet our outrage. Yes, outrage often gains likes and applause and cheers of both laughter and agreement, but it’s not often the way of the wise. 

Instead, let’s submit ourselves to those who have found wisdom through many years and most of all to God’s Word, rather than only our peers. Ask around in your church for a recommendation on someone who is older and wiser than you, and strive to build a relationship with them. Pick up some books or follow some blogs of writers who are older and more knowledgeable, even if they aren’t what’s most trendy on Instagram. 

Let’s learn to fear our God, who brought us here and gave us salvation from our sins—in that fear, we will find wisdom, as we recognize the grace and kindness in which he has dealt with us, and strive to show the same to our fellow image bearer. We should take care to position ourselves as experts on anything unless we truly are qualified for such a title. Instead, let’s be slow to speak, because wisdom is often found and best communicated with such careful treading, and our words will likely grow better with age.

I’m reminded of what the Ent (a magical, walking and talking tree) Treebeard said in Tolkien’s book The Two Towers: “[Entish] is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to” (p. 606). May we be like the Ents; taking a long time to say things, and only saying them if they are worth taking the time to speak and write.

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