don't let the old man in
“Your old men will dream dreams…”
Joel 2:28
"Every single day, he made a fresh beginning.”
Sayings of the Desert Fathers
(Abba Poemen speaking about Abba Pior)
I was on a recent camping trip in the woods of Ohio, sitting around a fire talking with men in their 50s and 60s. This is not my native environment. I live in the Theater District of Manhattan, and the majority of the people in the church I serve are in their twenties and thirties. Absolutely everyone who visits our church comments on how young everyone is. So, it was a rare gift to be around men who are older than me, talking about painful wisdom gained, changes in our culture, and the complexities of getting life right. But this wasn’t a nostalgia circle longing for simpler times or the glory days.
These men were full of vision and faith for the days ahead.
One conversation stood out to me, and it was around the trip I was planning for my first sabbatical. Next year, I will turn 50 and celebrate 30 years in ministry. When I was coming up, people didn’t do sabbaticals, and the idea of taking several months off for self-renewal and reflection seemed unthinkable. But I am grateful for the change in times, the emphasis on rest and recovery in ministry, and our church Board, which has graciously given me next summer for my first sabbatical. I am planning on a motorbike trip across America, in the spirit of the book Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.
Having not read the book, the men asked me what I found inspirational about it and the idea of a trip around America. I pulled the book out and read the following quote:
“It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany. It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, “Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were.” And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it’s such a sweet trap. Who doesn’t like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span…. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby.”
One of the men said it reminded him of the Clint Eastwood quote that became a song. He asked if I had heard it. I hadn’t.
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Clint Eastwood is 95 years old. He grew up during the Great Depression, the son of working-class parents who moved from town to town looking for stability. After high school, he took whatever jobs he could find, served in the Army during the Korean War, and eventually made his way to Los Angeles with little more than a vision of fame and a strong jaw line. He got his break on Rawhide, then redefined manhood in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, where his quiet presence transformed a whole generation's vision of masculinity. Many thought his career would end at some point, but something surprising happened. He stepped behind the camera and started directing, and the best work of his life began to take shape, and that at an age when most men were seeking to retire. Eastwood's best work happened in his sixties, seventies, and eighties.
From the age of 60 onward, Clint Eastwood directed a series of films marked by moral weight and emotional honesty. Unforgiven (1992) dismantled the myth of the noble gunslinger and won four Oscars, establishing him as one of cinema’s great storytellers. A decade later, Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby(2004) explored loss, vengeance, and fragile redemption, with the latter again earning him Oscars for Best Picture and Director. His twin World War II films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), offered a rare perspective on courage and humanity. Gran Torino (2008) brought those themes home, with Eastwood embodying a hardened man struggling to learn grace. American Sniper(2014) revisited the cost of modern warfare, while The Mule (2018) offered a final reflection on aging, regret, and the slow work of redemption.
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Toby Keith first met Clint Eastwood at a charity golf tournament in Pebble Beach in 2018, right as Eastwood was preparing to film The Mule. Keith said he was struck by how much energy Eastwood had, even though he was about to turn 88. During their round, Eastwood told Keith about the movie he was working on, a story about an aging man running drugs for a cartel, trying to provide for his family and make things right in his community.
When Keith asked how he planned to celebrate his upcoming birthday, Eastwood simply said he’d be spending the day on set. The answer stayed with Keith. At an age when most people would have retired long ago, Eastwood was still creating and still dreaming. When Keith asked how he kept that drive alive, Eastwood smiled and said,
“I just get up every morning and go out, and I don’t let the old man in.”
That line inspired Keith to write a song by the same name, which Eastwood later included in the film. You can listen to it here.
What a line, though, and what a vision. We have a choice as to what happens when we age. We can slowly decline or lean into what God has for us.
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The next day, after the conversation around the fire, I preached at the Crossroads Church Revival with Brian Tome, and I taught on Caleb and the 12 spies. Caleb had that same spirit of vision and passion. Caleb refused to let the old man in. When everyone else doubted God and spread a bad report, Caleb had vision and faith. So after 40 years in the wilderness, he said…
“So here I am today, eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day.”
Joshua 14:10–12
Acts 2 notes something remarkable about the outpouring of the Spirit. It says that when the Spirit is poured out, old men will dream again, and young men will see visions. The movement of Jesus is meant to be a movement of dreamers and visionaries.
We need men to get their dream back.
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I don’t know what changes AI is going to bring to the work force.
I don’t know how technology is going to divide and shape us.
I don’t know what the pollical landscape will hold, or the personal issues you will face, or the fears you feel about the future. But here is what I do know:
God isn’t done with you.
You are not destined to live the rest of your life with the best of your life behind you. You are not meant to slowly wind down, letting the dream God has given you slowly fade in the trivial dust of a cynical culture.
Some of the best and most important work of your life is ahead of you.
So don’t let the old man in.
Don’t let the cynical man in.
Don’t let the reasonable, or the expected, or the mediocre man in.
Get outside, do what God has called you to, and refuse to settle for anything less.
We need the wisdom God has given you, and the dream He has put within you, to shape the world around you.
I’ll see you outside, refusing to listen to the timid and fearful voice of age rob you of your full inheritance.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers.
Jon.
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Discussion Questions:
When you think about your own future, what dreams or callings have you quietly retired that might need to be awakened again?
Many men retreat into nostalgia or cynicism as they get older. What practices or relationships help you stay open, curious, and spiritually alive
Caleb, at eighty-five, declared he was still as strong and ready for war as when he was young. What part of your life still feels like “the hill country” you’re meant to claim?
How do you distinguish between aging with wisdom and simply settling for comfort, safety, or predictability?
If you could name one area where you’ve “let the old man in,” what specific step could you take this week to push back and live with renewed vision and faith?