The Gift of Older Christians in Your Life

Barbara Rainey became a Christian in her

sophomore year of college, and within three years, she was

helping lead a campus ministry in the middle of the Jesus

Movement. At one of those conferences, she heard a woman

she'd never heard of, Elizabeth Elliott, the missionary widow

whose husband had been killed in Ecuador. Barbara took notes as

fast as her hand would move. She wanted the thing that woman had,

a faith with some steel in it. Four years after coming to

Christ, she married Dennis, her best friend from college. Then

the babies started arriving, and her world got small really fast.

Dennis was out traveling and changing the world. Barbara was

home changing diapers. The conferences fell off her

calendar, and so did the Bible studies. She felt lost in those

years, and she started wondering whether her faith counted for

anything now that nobody was watching her live it. Then,

something started showing up in her mailbox. We'll come back to

what was in that mailbox. But

first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm

Bart Leger. Let me tell you about a man who did this for me.

Early in ministry, I had a mentor named Dr. Hugh Hughley.

He was decades ahead of me in the faith, and he'd watched God

work through more storms than I had lived through. What he gave

me was simple. His presence and the calm assurance of a man who

had seen God come through enough times that he didn't rattle

easily. My friends my own age couldn't give me that because

they hadn't lived it yet. Dr. Hughley had. I needed somebody

further down the road, and God gave me one. Here's something

that's easy to miss. Most of us spend our time with people in

our own stage of life. Parents of young kids know other parents

of young kids, and that's natural. And those friendships

really do matter. But when your whole circle is made up of

people the same age and the same mileage as you, something gets

left out. Nobody in that circle has been where you're going yet.

You're all reading the same map for the first time. Paul told a

younger pastor named Titus to knit the generations together in

the church. Listen to Titus 2.1-5. For you, Titus, promote

the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. Teach the

older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of

respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and

be filled with love and patience. Similarly, teach the older women

to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or

be heavy drinkers. Instead, they should teach others what is good.

These older women must train the younger women to love their

husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work

in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their

husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the Word of God.

Notice how Paul sets it up. The older women train the younger

women. The older men model self-control and sound faith for

the young men coming behind. He assumes that generations are

mixed in together, learning from one another. And look at what

the older ones bring to it. Sound faith and patience.

Patience is the kind of thing you earn only by living long

enough to watch God keep His Word again and again. That's the

gift an older believer hands you. They've already seen God do the

things you're scared He won't do. So if you don't have someone

like that in your life right now, ask God for one and then go

looking. Find the person a couple of decades ahead of you

and get near them. And if you're the older one, I want you to

hear this. You don't have to run a program. Your ordinary

presence in a young believer's life means more than you think.

The woman who mentored Barbara for years never once met her.

Here's what was in that mailbox. A newsletter. Four pages. Folded.

Nothing fancy. Elizabeth Elliott wrote it and mailed it out, and

it landed in Barbara's box every so often. Barbara would spot it

in the stack and walk down that long, hilly driveway, already

working out when she could slip away and read it alone. She was

thirsty enough that a folded piece of paper was a gift. That

newsletter mentored her for years. The two of them had never

met or spoken, and through those pages, an older woman kept

telling her that God knew exactly what He was doing and

that her faith mattered in the years nobody saw. Barbara still

has every one of them in a three-inch binder. About 20

years after that first conference, Elizabeth Elliott

came to Little Rock, and Barbara finally met her. Dennis

interviewed her on the air and asked whether she still

struggled with submission. Elliott didn't pause. She said,

with every fiber of my being. And Barbara sat there thinking,

there she goes again, still teaching me. Never met, never

spoke, and she shaped Barbara's faith for 25 years, four folded

pages at a time. That's how far an older believer's witness can

reach, even at a distance. Imagine what one across the

table could do. Here's today's challenge. Think of one believer

who has walked with God longer than you have, someone whose

faith you'd want a piece of. This week, reach out. Send the

text and tell them you'd like to learn from them. And if you're

farther down the road yourself, pick one younger believer and

get near them. You don't need a curriculum. You just need to be

there. Father, thank you for the believers who've walked with you

longer than we have, and for everything they've learned in

all those years with you. For anyone listening who has no one

like that, bring them someone and give them the nerve to reach

out. are the older ones now, open our eyes to the younger

believer who needs our ordinary presence. Make us people who

pass down what you've taught us. In Jesus' name, amen. If you

need prayer today, I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me

a voicemail at dailydevotionsforbusylives.com

slash voicemail. I listen to every single one, and it would

be an honor to bring your name before the Lord. Thanks for

joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.

to offer you won't get from your peers. So go find one or go be

one. Come back next time for more encouragement to help you

live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and have a

great day.