Dying With My Boots On

… even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you.  I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.  Isaiah 46:4

 

We have a dear friend who was going to speak at our church a couple of weeks ago.  I thought I should go and hear the update on his ministry.  This is not a man who wants any glory.  He loves to point to how the Lord is working and to the people that the Lord has brought to help him do his work.  On this particular night he had an older gentleman with him who had come into a different ministry to help out.  The Lord had taken me there for a reason!

 

The man was 74 and had started working for this ministry 18 months earlier.  He was 72 then.  He talked about how he had worked his whole adult life without much consideration of living for God.  At the age of 68 he rededicated his life to the Lord and started looking for full time ministry.  He was living in Arizona and found the work God was calling him to in Pennsylvania.  He left home and has been working full time since then – with no appearance of an end in the immediate future. 

 

The job he is doing – if I got the story straight  – is to organize and lead a major cleanup and restoration of a property that the ministry has not had time to do.  He brought with him years of professional experience at getting the job done and a heart full of faith that this work is God’s call on his life right now.  The night I heard him speak he was dressed very neatly in black jeans, a nice shirt, and, what I would call, cowboy boots.  He is 74 years young – not old.

 

The man made me think of Abraham who was a faithful man.  When God told him to leave his home and go where God would lead him: he went, without knowing where God was taking him.   In his old age God told Abraham that he would have a son.  Romans 4:19 says, “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.”  He knew God could give them a son and he believed that He would follow through on His promise. 

 

The faith of the man from Arizona also seems to be that “if God called him to it, God would see him through it.”  This is great faith.  I am considerably younger and the work he is doing seems next to impossible to me.  He was confident when he came to Pennsylvania that God would help.  Now, his faith has grown because of all the help the Lord has already provided.  There is a significant dent in the work because of the amazing provisions that God has made.  He has faithfully brought man-power and assistance from other organizations. …..enough to create an optimism to look for what miraculous way God will provide the next time. 

 

The most amazing thing to me is that this gentleman did not retire from his secular work, put his faith and desire to serve God on hold, and go play golf and rock on the front porch.  He lived in Arizona – he could have just lived to enjoy the weather.  I listened to this man and watched thinking,  “I want to be like this guy – he’s going out with his boots on.” 

 

I don’t think God will take him “out” anytime soon (though I recognize God can do whatever He wants).  He is a valuable asset to this work of God.  He is not winning converts or directly servicing missionaries on the field.  He is releasing others to do the work God has called them to do while he accomplishes what God has called him to do.  He is making the work of others easier at the cost of stress and physical labor on himself.  He is considering others more important than himself.

 

Psalm 92:12-15 say, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.  They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.  They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.”

 

There are many ways to bear fruit.  At the age of 74 this man is capable of full time work and has been blessed with organizational skills and experience to get this work done.  I doubt that that will be me.  But, we can all still bear fruit in our old age.  As long as we can talk, remember the scriptures, and hear the voice of God, we can respond to His call on our lives.  We will never be too old to consider the spiritual, emotional, and material needs of others and contribute as we can.  That may be labor or time, that may be money, or that may be prayer. 

 

What I would like to do is to serve the Lord until the day I die – I want to run the race He has set before me. I hope to bear fruit into my old age. Like this man- I want to go out with my boots on!