Applying the Gospel Study Bible
For Teens and College Students
To Dust You Shall Return
The Call to Remember
The words of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, echoing Ecclesiastes 3:20, ring with clearer truth with every passing year: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Remember. In a very real sense, those words parallel the call to number our days. To number our days is to perform an act of remembrance, and a much-needed one. The false story of anti-aging woos us to forget to remember. The true story calls to us that remembering is for our good.
Scripture shows us this pattern of remembering that we are dust. People who grieve in the Bible throw dust on their heads and sit in the dust. Psalm 103:14 tells us that God, too, bears in mind our origin: “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” He remembers, and he reminds. In fact, he reminds Moses of his dusty origins in one of the best-known stories of the Bible. In Exodus 3, Moses is passing an average day herding sheep on Mount Horeb. He sees a bush that burns but is not consumed. God calls to him from the flames, and he approaches, to be met by the words, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5).
Not “take off your cloak,” not “lay aside your staff,” not “get on your knees.” No, the command is to place his bare feet into the dust of the earth. Plant your feet in the dust from whence you came. I am the Lord your God. Remember that you are dust.
Dust to Dust
Jen Wilkin
In this biblical meditation on aging, Jen Wilkin draws poetic parallels between the first half of life and the second, inviting us to live fully at every stage.
Start Wishing
What do you wish when you number your own days? Your wish list may look different from mine, but I urge you to take the time to write it. Whatever you include on it, remember to write it as one who sees all of life as precious.
The false story of anti-aging is fueled by fear. Be afraid of growing old. It is a journey into obsolescence and irrelevance. Old age is bad. Cheat death until your dying day. Decline and death are a terrifying exit ramp off the highway of a meaningful life.
The true story of aging is predicated on joy. Savor growing old. It is a journey into deeper wisdom and self-forgetfulness. Old age is a privilege. Greet death before your dying day. Decline and death are part of God’s roadmap for a life lived to the full. We tend to think of the timeline of our own lives as the most important one. And we want our one life to matter and to make sense.
We want closure, the resolution of our plotlines. But the simple truth is that the vast majority of us will play our part, make our contribution as we are able, and return to the dust with unresolved tension in our storylines. Relationships will not be healed, injustices will not be righted, milestones will not be reached, temptations will not be conquered. Thankfully, we believe in a storyline bigger than our lifetime.
At the end of Genesis, Joseph dies. His last request is a testament to his unwavering faith and his awareness of a storyline that is larger than one lifetime: “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph makes the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here” (Gen. 50:24–25).
Like Joseph, we can go to our graves in the certainty that God will do exactly as he has promised. The worker of God goes into the dust, and the work of God continues without faltering.1
Firm from the beginning, firm to the end. Mercies for every day in between.
Knowing this with perfect clarity, our Savior laid down his life willingly. Will we do the same? When we know our days are short, will we be grateful for what we’ve been given or greedy for what we have not?
Yes, you may say, but Jesus knew he would be raised. He knew he could go into the grave and come back out again. Friend, so do you. If this meditation on the brevity of life has left you feeling as good as dead, remember that you are as good as raised.
The first man [Adam] was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man [Jesus] is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor. 15:47–49)
We can allow our bodies to follow the downward curve free from fear. Not free from suffering and loss, no, but with the certainty that even this decline will shape our souls. Even this decline will prepare us for the next life. This outward wasting away is our proof that trust in the man of heaven is the most basic of all wise acts. To gain a heart of wisdom is to see that trust grow luminous with the passage of years. One of my favorite hymns reminds us to sing this truth:
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!2
Firm from the beginning, firm to the end. Mercies for every day in between. Hear the words of Isaiah 46:9–10:
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose.”
What is that purpose as it relates to body and soul? Our Maker built us for interdependence with one another and for total dependence on him. Our bodies are made to remind us we are children of dust. Our souls are made to remind us we are children of heaven. Both together, from beginning to end, are for his glory alone.
The false story of anti-aging says: Outward decline signals loss of identity and fear of suffering and death. To age is to diminish.
The true story of aging says: Outward decline yields inward growth of spiritual and resurrection hope. To age is to deepen.
Will you live into the false story or the true one? In a world that incessantly and frantically asks how not to age, we ask, instead, how to age with wisdom. Set aside your fear of loss and embrace the great gain of godliness with contentment in aging (1 Tim. 6:6). God is giving in the taking. The God who decrees the beginning from the end, from dust to dust, will not fail us. We can age without fear, inhabiting a story that is both true and beautiful, to the glory of God.
From the moment we are born until the moment we die, we are aging. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year, our lives count up to midlife and down to end of life.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
May your every breath declare from first to last, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Notes:
- I am paraphrasing my friend Thabiti Anyabwile: “God buries the worker and continues the work.” Sermon given at The Village Church Denton, Denton, TX, August 24, 2025.
- Robert Grant, “O Worship the King,” Hymnary.org, 1833, https://hymnary.org/.
This article is adapted from Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World by Jen Wilkin.
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