My 85 year old friend and mentor, the one who invites me to the senior citizen lunch (and I go), and who gives me books by A.W. Tozer, and who calls to read the Bible to me and to make sure I’m doing well and spreading the fragrance of Christ, telephones with an astonishing statement.
I answer because I’ve already missed her call three times, but I was busy eating pie at the Memorial Day event in Boalsburg, PA. Now it’s evening. I know she has something she needs to say to me.
She declares this:
“I know why people are so unhappy. They are unhappy because they won’t let God have His way with them.”
She lowers her voice with the holiness of the statement. And then she actually giggles with the simplicity and truth of it.
I love older people. I just love them.
When my 85 year old mentor speaks, I listen. I take heed. I apply.
I immediately retreat into myself and ask the Holy Spirit where I’m not allowing God to have His way. And all morning, I consider that a great source of unhappiness in our lives does indeed come when we resist God, when we don’t surrender to His complete control. This has been true in my own life.
It’s a lesson for the ages from the aged, and I’m so thankful it came when it did.