Aging forms part of the life cycle established by God for human beings. This cycle includes birth, maturity, aging, and death. Society regards aging as a curse and promotes efforts to delay it through products, surgeries, and lifestyles. God intends aging as a process of growth rather than decline. The period of aging occurs under judgment, requiring wise use of time to develop a heart of wisdom. Physical changes accompany aging, including trembling limbs, weakened legs, loss of teeth, dimmed vision, reduced hearing, white hair, fear of heights, and diminished appetites. These changes mark the transition from youth to old age. The glory of the aged lies in gray hair, which symbolizes experience, wisdom, discernment, and common sense gained through life under God. Older men must remain sober, reverent, temperate, and sound in faith, love, and patience. Older women must remain reverent, avoid slander and excess wine, and teach good things to younger women. The aged fulfill roles by passing on the law of God, personal experiences with God, and wisdom to younger generations. This transmission preserves identity and character among God's people. The righteous flourish like a palm tree and continue to bear fruit in old age while declaring the uprightness of God. Aging serves as a divine tool to develop character through lessons such as compassion, proportion, appreciation, and perseverance. The silver-haired head constitutes a crown of glory when found in the way of righteousness.

Scientists at UCLA released findings from an ongoing long-term study of human aging. They followed 13,000 people to determine the key factors in human DNA that influence the aging process and whether science could discover a way to slow it down and extend life. Environmental factors such as lifestyle, diet, and smoking have a significant influence on health and thus lifespan. Inherent among all humans is a sort of innate biological clock. Scientists have found the most definitive evidence yet that some people are destined to age quicker and die younger than others regardless of their lifestyle. The findings could explain the seemingly random and unfair way that death is sometimes dealt out. It now looks like a person gets a clock given when young. It gets wound up and the pace it is ticking at is dictated by epigenetic machinery. God knows the span of lives. Each person has been given a genetic alarm clock, a congenital deadline to work with. The story explores the possibility of manipulating DNA to override this biological clock. The outlook is promising depending upon one's point of view. There is no end to the effort people will make to extend a deadline. This story is intriguing in the context of the human desire to predict the future to gain an advantage, to make life a little easier, to find the answer to the question of how long a person will live. Included with a calling is an immense weight attached to the date of physical death, for the day of physical death signals the completion of judgment. Time is up, the test is over, and the die is cast for good or for bad. Psalm 90:12-13 provides some eloquent, thought-provoking wisdom about keeping account of days to develop inner wisdom. Moses, the author of Psalm 90, acknowledged this congenital deadline, teaching that the decisions made presently and current behavior will determine how the heavenly Father will judge. Another psalm by David states to let it be known how life ends and the standard by which days will be measured, whatever it is, then it will be known how transient life is. Life span fits in the hand and is nothing compared to the measure of days. Every person at their best is a puff of wind. David asked God for standards, a way to measure with regard to assignment as well as deadline. The calling is in essence an assignment to learn how to submit to the will of God. This assignment comes with the ultimate deadline of death. Whether death occurs before the end or quickening at the return occurs, perception will be the same in that only in the moments following death will the eternal fate be learned. Time for this physical life will have ended and time for judgment will have passed. In the meantime what should be going through minds leading all the way up to that moment. In Ecclesiastes 3 it is learned that to everything there is a season including a desire to learn how one is doing spiritually and the number of days. If one knew the day of death from early in life how difficult life would become and how great a distraction it would be. God does not hand out spiritual report cards but if closeness remains God is faithful to reveal spiritual status. Every experience includes miraculous interventions in life. God also rebukes and chastens those loved. If working to stay close to God and striving to complete assignments and tests in righteousness occasional pleasant and unpleasant happenings can be anticipated to help gauge growth. One should never find oneself hopelessly lost or confused about how God views because love exists as love for Christ. The utmost will be done to keep headed in the right direction as stated in Isaiah 30:21. Since human existence is not eternal this verse contains an implied sense of urgency. All have deadlines to meet but too much urgency can turn into anxiety and not enough can lead to equally dangerous complacency. Either way bad fruit starts to be produced. Staying close provides perspective and balance and a special peace is discove

Aging affects the future welfare and mental state of individuals from about age 16 onward. Americans have six lifestyle choices as they age with four of those choices involving work. Retirement is the point where a person stops full employment completely although a person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours. Many people choose never to retire or return to work after retiring due to wages fringe benefits expenditure of physical and mental energy production of goods and services social interaction and social status. In most countries the idea of retirement is of recent origin. Most developed countries have systems to provide pensions on retirement in old age. Many retirees feel restless and suffer from depression due to a confluence of increasing age and deteriorating health status. Individuals in poor health generally retire earlier than those in better health. People often worry about retirement plans and investments but neglect health. Caring for others helps aging people live longer and more healthfully. The Hebrew language does not recognize the concept of retirement. Being alive means that people breathe eat and work. There will be no sluggards in God's kingdom. Members of God's family will never be idle and will never retire.

The days of human lives span seventy years or by reason of strength eighty years, yet their boast consists only of labor and sorrow, for life is soon cut off and people fly away. After reaching seventy-five or seventy-six years, individuals realize they live on borrowed time and must treasure each additional day as a blessing from Almighty God. Even one who lived to nine hundred sixty-nine years could not last one millennium. In the millennial Kingdom on earth, longevity extends to one hundred years for the child or the sinner before death or being accursed. No one escapes a temporary place in the grave. One lived to ninety-three years, four months, and eleven days, while another approaches one hundred three years. Time passes more quickly than anticipated. Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day and rage against the dying of the light. Performing certain actions after the age of sixty-five supports living to one hundred years. Strenuous exercises may not serve best in senior years, yet a half-hour walk slows the deteriorating age process. Seniors move along the longitudinal path of life while maintaining physical and spiritual health to function well into the seventies, eighties, nineties, and one hundreds.

Aging brings difficult days and years without pleasure. Physical abilities decline as arms tremble, legs weaken, teeth become few, eyes dim, ears deafen, sleep disrupts easily, fear of heights increases, hair whitens, movement slows, and desire fades. These changes make life more difficult by sapping pleasure, diminishing appetites, increasing aches, reducing energy and ambition, and complicating focus and memory. Diseases may also afflict the body during this period. Youth provides advantages of energy, strength, quick mind, and endurance for tasks, whereas aging reduces these capacities, making efforts more challenging and recovery longer. However, older individuals often possess greater humility and clearer understanding of life's values. The window for abilities, energy, and time closes with aging, as all people gradually wear out.

Senior citizens become alarmed when they forget where they have placed their keys or parked their car or cannot match a name with a familiar face. Older people expect memory deterioration. Meditation improves learning, memory, and self-awareness. Meditation improves rapid memory recall and reduces the risk of Alzheimer's and other dementia. Meditation might offset the loss of cognitive ability in old age. Long term meditators have larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of grey matter. Meditators have a thicker prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula.