Expensive Good friend,
Are you able to consider that we’re already within the eighth month of 2025? Job reminded himself that his life was a breath, James tells us that we’re a mist that seems for a short time after which vanishes, and the author of Ecclesiastes urges us to recollect our Creator within the days of our youth. So, whether or not the arrival of August options the return of the college bus or makes us nostalgic for days lengthy gone, we relaxation assured that our instances are in His palms.
My ideas have turned on this course due to a few encounters within the final month. The primary was at The Cove (the Billy Graham convention heart in North Carolina), the place I met a pair who have been celebrating their seventy-third wedding ceremony anniversary, and the second when, together with one among my granddaughters, I visited with Dick Lucas in London. Subsequent month, God keen, he’ll flip 100! What an inspiration to be within the firm of those that have been loving and following the Lord Jesus for many years and have lived to a superb previous age! It appears fully acceptable that our guide affords this month ought to assist us to comply with their instance and train us learn how to apply biblical knowledge in honoring our mother and father as they develop previous.
Flying dwelling throughout the ocean is just not as thrilling as watching the sunshine present of a touchdown in Los Angeles or the dramatic skyline of New York Metropolis when heading for London. A lot of air journey is studying learn how to handle the lengthy stretches with out succumbing to boredom or indifference. This could function a helpful metaphor for the center years of marriage. As a result of one thing is routine, it doesn’t comply with that it must be uninteresting. It’s in all probability true that the very best of marriages will not be sustained with the equal of a sequence of thrilling take-offs and landings, however they’re these the place the couple has managed to barter the lengthy stretches of routine exercise with persistence, creativeness, and quiet grace.
Later this month, Susan and I plan to retrace our journey to the mountains of North Carolina, the place fifty years in the past we spent our honeymoon, and replicate on the goodness of God, who has saved us “going regular” for half a century. Now we now have in view the couple I referred to earlier, who’re blazing a path en path to celebrating their seventy-fourth! They’ll testify to the truth that marriage is in some measure like hitting a golf ball properly: It isn’t simple, however it’s simple!
Please know that I make these observations keenly conscious that they are going to be learn by many who’ve by no means married or who at the moment are now not married. We search to be taught from one another, take care of each other, and acknowledge that we’re higher collectively than any of us are on our personal.
With honest thanks on your prayerful and monetary partnership, which permits us to carry God’s Phrase to an ever-growing viewers within the huge, far reaches of the world.
With my love within the Lord Jesus,
Alistair
