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In the years after my mom’s mother died, my family sorted through, distributed and affectionately claimed items of hers that were meaningful to us and that reminded us of who she had been. Sometime during that season, my aunt explained to me the meaning of a plaque that Grandma had hanging on her wall during my growing-up years. That plaque whimsically spelled the word “WHATEVER.” That‘s all there was to it. I hadn’t really ever questioned why she had that word displayed prominently. It was probably bought in the 70’s and there’s a pretty good chance that it was expected to be purchased by a youngish person who was throwing off societal mores and values. That description did not fit my grandmother at all, so why had she bought it and moved it with her to the homes she had lived in through the years since?
The day that we were sorting through Grandma’s things and remembering her, my aunt told me that for Grandma, the plaque represented her response to what God brought her in life. Grandma had become a Christian around age 50. She was deep into life, experiencing both the joys and sorrows of a wife and mother of six children, all at various stages of life, and each either embracing or rejecting God in a variety of ways. She had no honeymoon period as a Christian of thinking that now her life would be full of everything going well. She came to know God in years when she knew that there was much beyond her control and that she had to depend completely on God’s goodness to sustain her and all of those that she deeply loved. But even as a new Christian, she saw in God’s word that he is trustworthy. She responded with deep faith that God was with her in each situation, was hearing her heart cries and prayers, and was worthy of being trusted day by day. God was enough. And for the next 20 some years of her life, she lived in a way that said, “I will trust and live for you, Lord, in WHATEVER you bring me.”
As I read the I Timothy 5 description of women who lived God-honoring lives, the image of Grandma’s “WHATEVER” plaque keeps flashing through my mind. For I see a variety of possible circumstances referred to. And I see that Paul’s commendation isn’t centered on exactly what those circumstances are. His concerns allow for a variety of life stories. What he commends is a life-long awareness of God’s priorities and calls. Paul wants to see a consistent godly response to the WHATEVER God brings into these women’s lives.
Context: The book of First Timothy is a letter written by Paul to Timothy who was pastoring the church in Ephesus. The letter gives Timothy instruction on how to handle several issues that the church was dealing with at that time.
One of the issues they were facing was how to care for the older widows within the church. In the culture of the time, widows were often especially in need of provision. The New Testament church rightly took seriously the precedent we see set in Old Testament times to care and provide for them. However, in doing this, Timothy and the church at Ephesus needed some clarification about which widows the church should actually be taking financial responsibility for.
Let’s read together what Paul tells Timothy. Please follow along in your Bibles or on the screen as Anna Beth reads aloud I Timothy 5:3-16.
“Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.
1 Timothy 3:15 tells us that the point of Paul’s letter is that Timothy “may know how one ought to behave in the household of God,” How the church cares for widows is a key part of that.
Tonight’s focus: But tonight, our focus will not be on how the church cares for widows. Our focus tonight will center on what the passage ends up doing incidentally, that is, telling us a lot about the life that a woman leads before she is an older widow. This passage gives us a view from the back-end of a life well-lived for the Lord. It is a robust description encompassing young womanhood, middle-age, and older womanhood. This view from the end is invaluable to us as Christian women who take seriously the Lord’s estimation of success.
As women’s lives are discussed in this passage, there are several prominent themes that surface. Tonight’s teaching will be centered around these themes which help us to answer the age-old question that comes to us repeatedly: What is the will of God for my life? Our four points tonight are four answers to that question:
Set my hope on God (v. 5)
Care for my family (vv. 4,8-10, 14-16)
Do good works (v.10)
Work diligently (vv. 13-15)
Tonight we will look at each of these themes in the context of this passage and in the context of our own lives. We will consider how they help us in every season of life to determine what the will of God is for us and what we are to be about.
A few qualifiers before we begin:
Back to the four answers to the question “What is the will of God for my life?”
First, the will of God for my life is that I set my hope on God (v. 5)
Let’s begin near the front of our passage, in verse 5:
Paul begins here to describe the type of widow that the church should support financially. Some of the criteria is related to her situation, her age and current relatives able to care for her. But another part of the criteria is connected to her character. Has this woman lived a life that pleases the Lord? This is what we will be taking note of tonight. In verse 5, Paul describes this woman as one who has “set her hope on God.” What does it mean for this woman to have set her hope on God?
Well certainly, there is not just one way to go about answering this question. But I am going to give one answer that I think encompasses a major part of the answer:
It means that she has an understanding that the realities that truly determine her welfare are spiritual realities.
This woman’s circumstances are very desperate. She is experiencing loss of love and companionship and also loss of physical provision. She is walking through deep grief and in addition sees ahead for herself great material need. To the outsider looking in, it appears that her current worldly circumstances are a very dire determining factor in her life.
But underneath all of this, this woman has an awareness that her worldly circumstances are actually not the determining factor for her. Her standing before our holy God is the thing. Since she has received God’s forgiveness of sins by faith through grace, she is no longer separated from God and ultimately, all is well. Romans 8:31-32 says: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” God has provided for her greatest need. This guarantees that He can meet all the rest of them.
Additionally, as a recipient of God’s saving grace, this woman is a child of God! Romans 8:15 says to Christians, “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons [and daughters], by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” As a daughter of God she can be confident that her Father will care for her on earth and throughout eternity.
I think that in order for us to walk through life accepting God’s “whatever,” we must have a sense of our true spiritual state. We are reconciled to God and now stand as daughters of God. Daughters of the perfect Father, all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Living in this reality will go a long way toward helping us to live in the hope that is ours as Christians.
ACTION POINT: Set your hope on God by learning to live in the good of your daughter-of-God status.
Some ideas for how to do this:
And we learn from Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow, told in Luke 18:1-5: “that [we] ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
God wants us to have faith and to continue in prayer for those desperate needs that we feel so deeply. God hears and answers. And His desire for us is that we continue to pray in faith throughout our days.
A concluding thought for this first (and foundational) section: The women that our passage describes (widows) have been through a lot of life. And all of them have lost their husbands. Their earthly hopes have been dashed to at least some degree. If it’s reasonable for these women to set their hope on God, it’s reasonable for you and I to as well.
Let’s transition now to our second answer to the “What is the will of God for my life?” question.
The will of God for my life is that I care for my family (vv. 4,8-10, 14-16)
This passage as a whole has quite a lot to say to us about our care for our families. And it addresses all of us in terms of being children, grandchildren, nieces and cousins as well as mothers and wives. So there are ideas in this section that will apply to us all.
In verses 3-4 of our passage, Paul indicates that adult children and/or grandchildren should “learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.” This idea of making some return to our parents is not necessarily one promoted by our current culture. But we see here that it is a biblical idea! Goes hand in hand with the idea of honoring our parents and older people. It is appropriate for us to respond to the physical and emotional needs that our parents and grandparents have as they age.
This is a church full of people who have been heroic examples to me in caring for their families. If that is you, be encouraged! You are pleasing the Lord with this kind of family care.
And if you are new to considering this issue, let Paul’s words influence your thoughts. Also be aware that physical care is not the only way that we honor our parents and grandparents. For most of our lives, it’s emotional care that we work hard to extend to them. We want to treat them with kindness, interest and respect all the years that God gives them to us.
A little further down in verse 16 this idea is expanded even beyond our parents and grandparents, when it says, “If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them.” This verse suggests that we may need to be aware of the needs of our older relatives even beyond our parents and grandparents. This is a scenario that can look quite different in different families.
My parents’ extended families were pretty extensive and because of the number of relatives I really only had limited relationships with my great-aunts and uncles, my parents’ cousins, etc. And there have always been quite a few people between me and the older folks, aside from my grandparents. So feeling any kind of responsibility for these people really never occurred to me.
But when Daniel and I got married, his family looked quite different from mine. It was generally smaller and there had been more early deaths in the last two generations. So the sense of responsibility that he felt for his grandmother and great-aunts and uncles was heightened compared to mine. He had a great-aunt who had never married and had always lived with his mom’s family. Daniel’s mom cared for her financially and emotionally, and Daniel knew he and his brother would carry that on if his mom were to pass away before she did. We also visited her with our kids as we would’ve with his grandmother, which was different from my relationships with my great-aunts who each had children and grandchildren of their own.
I describe our family situation just to illustrate that we don’t all have equal responsibility for all of our relatives. But when we do have a person in our family that is in financial and/or emotional need, we don’t want to ignore that. The Bible would call us to consider whether or not we should extend care to that person in some way. This is a biblical concept. Verse 8 of our passage says, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” So we want to take these issues seriously.
In addition to encouraging all of us to consider our relatives in need, this passage also speaks to marriage and mothering.
In v. 9 it describes a worthy widow as having been “the wife of one husband.” The commentaries that I have used in preparing this teaching indicate that the meaning here is not that she has resisted remarriage. She may have experienced the death of a first husband and married again. Remarriage of younger widows is actually encouraged in v. 14 of this very same passage. The meaning here seems to be that each time she was married, she was faithful to that husband; as a wife she was always a “one-man woman.”
Regarding motherhood, in verse 4 we read that this worthy woman has children and grandchildren. In verse 10, bringing up children is listed as one of her good works. And in verse 14 the work of marrying, bearing children and managing a household is strongly suggested as a good thing.
Now, just to state the obvious here, Paul is assuming in his words that marriage and parenting are good parts of a woman’s life.
I think that as a woman, this assumption can hit us in two ways. First…this can at times be a perplexing and painful assumption for us to see in the text. Some of us may heartily agree that marriage and mothering are good things and desire them—and yet, not have a husband or not have children. Or perhaps we have them, but also have circumstances surrounding our marriages or our mothering that have brought us pain and confusion.
To those of you in that position today, I want to remind you that God sees you and He knows. Remember how God revealed himself to Hagar back in Genesis 16, when she and her son, Ishmael, fled because of how they were being treated? It is at this point that God revealed Himself to Hagar as “the God who sees.” None of the intricacies of this situation escaped God. It was a situation filled with sin and weakness, and still, God was there with Hagar and Ishmael. As well as with so many other women in the Bible who faced loss, disappointment, and mistreatment.
I don’t know what the specifics of your situation are, but I do know that God sees you and is near. Near to those whose hope has been deferred over and over again. Near to the brokenhearted. In fact, brokenheartedness is an assumed part of the passage we are looking at today. I Timothy 5 is centered on the lives of women who have lost their husbands.
The Bible doesn’t always qualify every statement in the way that we might want it to. But it is a very realistic book, written by the God who knows, cares and redeems. Read it always confident of that.
Back to our reaction to Paul’s indication that marriage and mothering are an assumed and good part of life for women….the way that Paul’s assumption may hit us is with surprise…
Wow, are you allowed to just say that? That marriage and motherhood are natural and good things!?! We are very used to living in a world that does not do that. We are used to having to qualify our God-given design and the joy that can come with embracing this part of our womanhood. Interestingly, Paul does not make any apologies when he indicates that marriage and mothering are right and good, natural and expected. He unashamedly encourages the younger women to pursue marriage and motherhood if God brings them that opportunity.
We serve a God who is sure in His creation design of men and women. And we serve a God who sees and knows all of His daughters and their disappointments and hardships. God can do both at the same time.
My prayer is that we too, would be able to do both: Live out our creation design with joy and also care well for one another in this broken world.
In closing this section: This passage and others affirm to us the rightness and the significance of the calling to care for our families, from the youngest to the oldest. This is a high calling. It requires from each of us
intentionality,
strategy,
discernment,
creativity,
energy,
perseverance,
love and
faith.
This endeavor has significance now and into eternity. It impacts lives at their most vulnerable stages and often paves the way for a person to receive the gospel. Let’s care for our families as the Lord gives us opportunity, with the knowledge that faithfulness here is God’s priority for us and is the necessary prelude to all other people-care that we extend.
ACTION POINT: Feel the weight of our responsibility to care for our families. Who are the people that God has called me to care for currently?
Now we will transition to our third and fourth points. These two sections are based in verses 9-15.
Third, the will of God is that I do good works
Verse 10 tells us that this older woman whom Paul is commending has a reputation for good works. And also in verse 10 we are given a list of the type of good works that Paul has in mind:
Bringing up children,
showing hospitality,
washing the feet of the saints,
caring for the afflicted,
and then he closes by saying that the worthy woman has devoted herself to every good work. These good deeds all center on extending our hand to a variety of other people. Caring for them physically and spiritually; giving of ourselves for their good. Let’s talk briefly about the categories Paul mentions.
First, bringing up children. We’ve already talked about this as part of point two on caring for our families, so I’ll be minimal. I just want to mention that it’s significant that he puts this in the list of good works. Often we think that ministering to our own family doesn’t count in a missional way. But if you are involved in the work of bringing up and of discipling your children, you are devoting yourself to good works, ministering to others, fulfilling the Great Commission in a profoundly influential way.
And then he mentions hospitality. We see this command given throughout the New Testament. Additionally, we see in the narratives of the gospels and Acts that the Christians regularly had other people in their home for meals, fellowship, church meetings and overnight stays. The sense of “life together” that we get when we read about the New Testament church, was dependent on people opening their homes and sharing what they had with all kinds of people.
There are times in life when we can do this more regularly than at other times. If you have just had a new baby, please don’t feel that you should be having people over. Or if you are caring for a sick parent, or are sick yourself, please don’t feel that you should also be cooking for others.
But as you are able, make hospitality a regular part of your life in a way that fits with your current family situation and personality. We don’t all extend hospitality in the same way. That is part of the beauty of the church. Some really enjoy putting time into a well thought out nice meal with decorations. Others of us are more comfortable being pretty casual in the way that we have people over. Both are lovely and needed.
I was recently in conversation with a few friends and one of the women there offhandedly and unintentionally described her style of hospitality. She said something to the effect of “I might never getting around to having you over for a pre-planned formalish dinner. But if you want to stop by spontaneously or come live with us for a while, I’m all over that.” I loved that statement. This friend has a clear gift of hospitality that she exercises regularly. It has its own unique and effective look. That’s how it is in the church.
Next, he describes this worthy woman as one who washes the feet of the saints. This indicates a humble, sacrificial sense of servanthood toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. We extend a regular kind of family care to those that are part of our local church. Not in a way that excludes non-church friends and neighbors. But just as we would be remiss to overlook the needs of our own family while ministering to others, we would also be remiss to ignore the needs of our church family while meeting other needs. “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith,” Gal. 6:10. (Meals, cars, time, money, childcare, encouragement)
And finally, Paul tells us to care for the afflicted. The Lord truly does desire us to extend our hands to those with clear affliction and need. When the Lord makes us aware of such needs among our friends and neighbors, we want to be in the habit of considering whether or not this is a need we should try to meet
Beyond our circles of acquaintances, it is sometimes difficult to know how to fulfill this calling to help the afflicted. We have trouble identifying true needs and sometimes aren’t sure how to meet them. I have personally been so very grateful for the people in our church who are working to help us take advantage of opportunities to help people in our community who are in very difficult situations. The work of people in our church with Safe Families for Children, Western Wake Crisis Center, crisis pregnancy centers, Samaritan’s Purse, Habitat for Humanity, Crossing All Borders and more has provided all of us with a variety of doable ways to help.
I would commend these efforts on the basis of this I Timothy 5 call to care for the afflicted. And also in response to the example of the woman in Proverbs 31 who “opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.” Working together seems to be allowing each of us to serve in appropriate ways. We want to continue to cultivate a desire to help others and to exercise creativity and gumption in doing so throughout our lives, from young womanhood through to old age.
Before leaving this section on good works, I want to spend a few minutes talking about how we flesh out this category in our lives. It’s a challenge to fit good works into our busy days because just taking care of the non-negotiables in life takes so much time and energy. And it does always take discernment to know how much time to give to service, both inside and outside of the church.
Yet, it could be that growth in this area is more possible for us than we might at first think. To those of you busy taking care of young children, let me suggest to you looking for service opportunities that connect to the obligations that are already part of your life. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming to serve more children when you are already steeped in taking care of your own. But I would suggest to you that sometimes adding something similar to what you are already doing is actually a whole lot more doable than exploring another area of service. For years I avoided teaching a Children’s ministry class for that very reason. I felt that I was already teaching enough during the week and didn’t want to add another teaching prep to my weekends.
But at some point I was encouraged to think about that differently. Someone suggested to me that that is actually the very place that I might flourish and put the gifts already being cultivated in my life to use serving others. And they were exactly right. Adding on one more teaching moment once a month was in my wheelhouse, not the straw that would break the camel’s back. How grateful I am for that gentle nudge I received 8 years ago.
Similarly, I’ve heard other women mention that caring for a child that age-wise fits into their own brood at home, actually works very well. It doesn’t require them to buy different kinds of food or prepare their home in any special way. Another child can fit right in, and the experience allows your own children an opportunity to serve as well as they share their toys and give preference to someone else’s needs for a time.
Finally, if you are in a long or short period of not having family responsibilities take up a large amount of your time, how should you think about being known for good deeds?
Well, I want to acknowledge up front that I know that you are also pressed for time. Your days look different from someone caring for a family. But likely you are managing all aspects of adult life by yourself as well as holding down a full-time job. Or you are a student with a full-load during the day and at night. These are heavy loads.
So I would propose to you that you serve not because you have extra time. But rather because God asks us to care for other people and you likely have gifts that will significantly be a blessing to others. Also, I think that you will experience rewards that will be a unique encouragement to you. Serving others nearly always has this component to it.
And what about younger women?” In his commentary on I Timothy, Philip Ryken says, “Younger women, especially, ought to devote themselves to all kinds of good deeds. I praise God for the charity of Christian women…they host Bible clubs for the children in their neighborhoods. They care for pregnant teenagers. They form friendships with people dying of AIDS. They tutor inner city children. They open their homes to guests. They pray for the work of the church. They work in hospitals, the schools, and even on the streets of the city to show the love of Christ. The work of these women is a reminder of something once said by Libanios, the ancient pagan philosopher who taught rhetoric in ancient Antioch. One of the great scholar’s pupils was John Chrysostom, who later became the famous preacher of Constantinople. Chrysostom’s father died when he was young, and his mother made extraordinary personal sacrifices to ensure that her son would get the education he needed to serve the kingdom of God. When Libanios heard her story from one of Chrysostom’s classmates, he remarked, ‘Great heavens, what remarkable women are to be found among the Christians!’” (pp. 213-214, I Timothy Reformed Expository Commentary by Philip Graham Ryken).
That was an extensive list. Please don’t try to do all of these things! But consider your years as a young woman as a special time and seek the Lord about how He wants you to use them for His glory.. Let’s all grow in seeing ourselves as the Lord’s servants, ready to abound in good works and to be salt and light in this dark world that God has put us in at this exact time and in this exact place.
ACTION POINT: Determine one new area of service that would be reasonable for you to pursue right now and create a realistic plan for making that happen.
I will be addressing our final point from verses 13-15. There are some interesting statements made along the way in this section of our passage. I will do my best to be faithful to the text and pull appropriate application points from what we read.
Mention vv. 11-12…
Recommend commentaries: Kent Hughes/Bryan Chapell, Phil Ryken, Andreas Kostenberger, Philip Towner.
The will of God for my life is that I work diligently
God has made us to work. Work was there before the Fall as something integral to being human. The taking of dominion in this world was going to require work even before Adam sinned...but just without pain and difficulty. Our days were always intended to be lived purposefully, diligently, and productively, doing the work that the Lord lays before us.
The opposite of working is being idle, which means to be inactive, lazy and useless, ineffective and unfruitful. (Being idle is different from taking appropriate breaks, from daily and weekly patterns of rest and refreshment, from the naps you need when pregnant and nursing, from the natural slow down that happens as we age.) Being idle means not working hard when there’s much that we should be doing at the moment. It is acting as though life is about comfort and leisure instead of about doing the work of the Lord in the circumstances that He’s put us in.
And idleness leads to sin. In v. 13 we see that idleness in some young women was paving the way for them to gossip and act like busybodies, saying what they should not say. It was leading them to sin in ways that were not good for them or for their communities. We can relate to these sins, can’t we. We’ve likely all been in situations when we’ve been distracted by somebody else’s business and gotten caught up in finding out and perhaps passing on more information surrounding the situation. We are easily tempted in this way.
But it’s not pleasing to God or good for us to indulge in this kind of thing. How do we overcome the temptation to meddle and gossip? Paul suggests here that entering into the work of living is the solution for resisting this kind of temptation. He recommends to young widows that they remarry and get involved again in managing a household. This will be life-giving to them and to others. And re-engagement in a full workload will be the best way for them to overcome the sins of gossip and self-indulgence.
But marriage or remarriage are not always easily available options to us, are they? What then? Well, I think that we can still take from Paul the idea of embracing and heartily engaging in life in the ways that are available to us.
For some, the circumstances that God has brought into their life have made it very clear that God’s call to them is to provide for their families financially. Getting a job that allows them to do that is the godly response to the “whatever” that God has for them. For those of you in this position, your Christian service will be in doing your job well while simultaneously managing your people at home to the glory of God. This is a high call indeed.
For some others, it might be less clear what you should be doing with your time. I’m probably thinking specifically here about those of you who are in those nebulous years after high school. Or of those who have been single longer than expected. Here are some ideas for you:
Look for a job that taps into the gifts that God has given you and faithfully do your work. And as you do your work relate as salt and light to the people your work connects you to.
And, perhaps find other regular service opportunities that you can get involved with in your non-work hours. (Suggestion: Talk to Claire Talbott about Child Evangelism Fellowship. She’s done work with them for years.)
Or you may be able to find a job that both allows you to support yourself financially and minister at the same time.
Education may be part of your journey to set yourself up well for industriousness, service in our community, and for overseeing your own children’s education in the future.
And no matter what your day-job situation is, open your home, for regular hospitality or even to people with unusual needs that you might be uniquely able to meet.
Look around you and talk to people who you see navigating a long or short non-married season well. There are many in our church community that we can learn from.
So back to Paul’s exhortation to the younger women…
We do well to hear Paul on this issue of idleness and gossip. When we find ourselves minding other people’s business instead of our own, we likely need to re-engage with the work God has set before us, and to dig in in new ways. Or we may need to re-evaluate our approach to our current life season and perhaps explore new ways to serve the Lord with our time. In any case, we need to resist wasting time and being idle.
One last point about working... Determining which work God is calling me to at each moment in time is a very significant component of living life as a woman. Our lives and responsibilities change frequently. The issue for women is not, “Will I work?” We should all work diligently during the years that we are physically able to. The question for us is what kind of work should be my priority in each season of my life.
ACTION POINT: Where am I in danger of losing sight of my primary work because of other distractions?
I was recently talking about these issues to a woman in our church, Sherry Talbott. I appreciated her thoughts and asked if she would take a minute to write some of them down. As you might expect, she got back to me with some very valuable insights. Her thoughts pertain specifically to her transition to the empty nest years. But her thinking during this transition is helpful to us all. Listen to what she says…
While in the midst of raising children and supporting Blake while he was working full time in an office...there were many demands on my time. A lot of [my] ministry was focused in my home, discipling 3 children.
But then comes the day they are all grown and gone, Blake is retired, and Mom has moved in. Our life is at a much slower pace. I found it difficult at first to regain my footing. It is all too easy at this stage to drift into filling time with meaningless stuff, especially with all the electronic gadgets sitting in our homes. In our current age, if you look up articles or books on retirement, most of them are about travel, taking classes, full-time pursuit of hobbies, etc. Not that any of those are wrong in and of themselves, but as Christians, there should be more to our lives than that.
As I worked through some of this, I have come away with several thoughts.
First...God has called us to love Him and love others as He makes us more like Him. That calling never changes, regardless of our season.
[Second, remember the] phrase at the end of Titus 3:1. “Remind them…to be ready for every good deed.” That readiness includes being spiritually, mentally and physically ready. What am I doing each day to prepare myself and my home to be ready for whatever opportunities God brings my way? How am I making myself available when out and about to notice what opportunities God is providing to show His love to those I meet?
This, in practicality, works out in several ways. For example, spiritual readiness - spending time daily in the word and in prayer so that my focus is on God, not just my surroundings. Physical readiness -Walking or working out to maintain my mobility and ability to help Mom and others. Mental readiness -Finding ways to use my hobbies to bless others so it’s not just a time-filler, but becomes a way to minister. Also, reading books at least 30 minutes a day to learn more and to keep my mind engaged.
These are helpful thoughts, aren't they?
Sherry’s first thought is that God’s call to us to love Him and to love others never changes, no matter what season of life she is in.
Sherry’s second thought is to remain “ready for every good work,” a phrase from Titus 3:1. This phrase connects to the I Tim. 5 idea that we discussed today of “cultivating a reputation for good works.”
And her third thought was to figure out what she needed to do practically to make these things happen. She determined specific ways in her current life that she would cultivate this love for the Lord and maintain mental and physical ability to love the people in her life and do the good works that God has called her to.
I think Sherry’s application points correspond pretty well to today’s ACTION POINTS for our sections. Just to review, here they are…
As always in a teaching like this, we can be overwhelmed and consequently, forget everything that was said. So my encouragement for you right now is to take a minute and consider which ONE of these ACTION POINTS might be most important for you to hone in on right now. Is there one of these topics that taps into things you’ve been thinking about and wrestling with? Is there one that is most relevant to you today?
Tonight we examined the priorities of a life well-lived by an older Christian woman. Her call was to set her hope on God, care for her family, and do good works. These priorities can orient us all through life’s transitions, expected and unexpected. They guide us as we make adjustments to our use of time. They stabilize us as we walk through grief, trials and suffering. They bring us godly confidence and peace as we do our work each day. They help us at each turn to answer the question, What is the will of God for my life?
I don’t have that plaque of my grandmother’s hanging in my house. But I think about it frequently, contemplating what to her it represented. Like Grandma, may we all live with deep faith that God is with us in each situation, hears our heart cries and prayers, and is worthy of being trusted day by day. God is enough. May we all believe this and live for our Lord, in WHATEVER He brings.
Let’s pray…
Here are some other recent messages.
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