22 March 2009
Dear Bethel Family and Friends: (E-Mail Version)
I’ve sometimes wondered if a person in his eighties can really add anything meaningful to public or Christian discourse. It would have to be from the perspective of age and one always faces the danger of being considered outdated and/or irrelevant.
It is so easy to give advice but everyone knows what that is worth. It is hard to see someone you love making the same mistakes you may have made. You would like them to benefit from your experience but that seldom happens. It’s an age-old dilemma.
The Chinese, we are told, associate age with wisdom. Maybe true, but not always. Perhaps it all comes down to who is speaking and who is listening. They say real love is to have the other person’s best interests in view. That seems about right, should work.
…
Some of the more familiar Bible passages are being studied in Jake’s adult SS. Today, we were still in Ecclesiastes, chapter 3. After listing some of the issues common to man, leading to the conclusion God is in control, the writer goes on in verse 11 to state, in part, “He has also set eternity in man’s heart.” We understand this to mean each person has an inner awareness that there is more than just this life to be considered. This explains why man has been a worshiper from the beginning. Application: Only a relationship with the living Creator-God brings the peace for which man yearns. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son…/snip/…whereby we must be saved.”
Love…Larry Buhler