Well, I haven’t grown physically. At my age, people sometimes start to grow smaller rather than taller 😀. Hopefully that won’t happen for a while yet. Mentally? I don’t know anything that I can associate specifically with this year. Over the last few years, I’ve been adjusting to being in my sixties. It still feels quite bizarre. I remember some years ago hearing someone say “50 is the new 30”. I wondered if 60 was the new 40. It is interesting seeing people like Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan still touring, and they’re much older than me. But it serves as a challenge to me, not to tour, but to engage with life a little more rather than just fading into the background.
Anyway, I do hope that I am growing spiritually. I need to apply myself to this, but God Himself is also at work in me as He is in all those who commit their lives to Him:
Philippians 1:6
6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Again, I can’t identify anything specific, but I am prone to fondly remember all eras of my life and all the people I’ve known, and I almost effortlessly pray for them. There’s so much encouragement to pray in the New Testament, and it isn’t difficult. Yet, I never felt that I did it enough. But it’s beginning to come more naturally to me.
Here are some verses about spiritual growth, followed by some hymns:
1 Thessalonians 3:12
12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
1 Peter 1:1-3
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Colossians 1:9-10
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God
Hibernia Gospel 