The Call (and an Invitation to Our Prayer Team)
A gentleman who reads these devotionals (and who I know to be a man of much prayer) told me that when he retired, he asked the Lord what He wanted him to do with the rest of his life. He was reading in the book of Joshua and decided to end that day's reading at the end of the 12th chapter.
He was about to close his Bible, but he sensed an urge to read into the 13th chapter. The first verse said, "Now Joshua was old and stricken in years, and the Lord said to Joshua, thou art old and stricken in years and yet there is much land to possess."
He closed his Bible, thanked the Lord for His revelation and set out to conquer the land of Canaan in his own life. He wrote, "I would now say that I have been more spiritually productive in my work for the Lord in these waning years than I had been in all my productive years. To God be the glory."
Anna, the first older woman mentioned in the New Testament, "was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying" (Luke 2:37). What a fruitful life she must have had!
She reminds me of another Anna. Anna Bebermeyer lived in a nursing home where for years she pleaded with God to close a certain bar in her hometown, Warrenton, Missouri. The devastation it was doing to the young people grieved her, and she begged God to remove this evil influence. One day the restaurant unexpectedly announced it was closing its bar. What a miracle, but God wasn't finished.
Anna's pastor's wife put a notice in the newspaper inviting anyone who wanted to learn more about the Bible to come to a Bible class. Soon her living room was too crowded, so she went to the local restaurant and asked if they could meet there.
They agreed and put the group in the very room where only days before liquor had been sold. Our God delights in giving exceedingly abundantly beyond what we ask or think.
"They will still bear fruit in old age" (Psalm 92:14).
Thank you, Lord, for those who leave us examples of faith and fruit-bearing.
