Enduring Walk

Anita Delene Manthe
Dec 23, 2016
2 min read

I love old Christian women! The kind of woman who has walked long with the Lord, and has learned to endure having been taught by Him. No longer do they waste conversation on the trivial concerns of life – they center their conversations on the Lord. This is how it is supposed to be. Listening to them is learning. We learn how to hold on through their speaking of the Lord’s faithfulness through difficult seasons of life. They have walked through the unexplainable trials, the ones that seem not to make sense, and they have seen Him stand strong for them.

Do you have any older friends whom you can learn from, who can share with you their great trials and how they were brought out of them? Often it is not a magic escape, it is that they learned the purposes of the Lord through the difficulties. They learned to hold onto the reality of Him, the knowledge of Him, and He proved Himself. His Word became real, they saw His faithfulness as the promises of Scripture were realized.

Learning from others will allow us to know that often there is no magic removal from trials. The trials become the very tools the Lord uses to sanctify us. The hymn How Firm A Foundation reminds us of this:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow; For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

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 (Psalm 92:12-15).
Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ (2 Peter 3:7-8).
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:3).
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity (2 Peter 3:18).

Do you befriend older saints to learn from them? Why and why not?
How do you plan to change your involvement with older saints?
Plan questions to ask them about their coming to Christ, and what the most important lessons they learned from Him?
What was their greatest spiritual struggle?
What was their greatest spiritual victory?
Be faithful and committed to them?
Grow with them, learn from them!