From The Back Pew X

A young man was getting ready to graduate college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box. Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily, he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy book.

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day.

Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care things. When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?

From The Back Pew IX

How to Know You're Getting Older
Everything hurts! and what doesn't hurt, doesn't work!
You feel like the night before, and you haven't been anywhere!
You sit in a rocking chair and you can't get it going!
Your knees buckle and your belt won't!
Dialing long distance wears you out!
Your fortune teller offers to read your face!
The little gray haired lady you help across the street is your wife!
You sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay there!
You wake up in the morning and your water bed has sprung a leak,
then, you realize you don't have a water bed!
When you watch a pretty girl go by, your pace-maker makes the garage door go up!
When you know all the answers, but no one asks you the questions!
When you decide to procrastinate, but never get around to it!

Old age is dreaded by almost everyone because it usually means loneliness, physical decline, and a retreat to inactivity. Some people tend to lose their enthusiasm for life and spend too much time in fruitless reminiscing and self-pity. They feel like "Old Jimmy", an elderly gentleman George Mueller often told about. When this man was asked what he did all day since he had retired, he replied, "I just sit and think, and sit and think,...and sometimes I just sit!" That's getting old in the worst way -- ceasing to live before we die.

History records that many people made some of their greatest contributions to society after the age of 65. The Earl of Halsburg, for example, was 90 when he began preparing a 20- volume revision of English law. Goethe wrote Faust at 82. Galileo made his greatest discovery when he was 73. At 69, Hudson Taylor was still vigorously working on the mission field, opening up new territories in Indochina. And when Caleb was 85, he took the stronghold of the giants (Josh. 14:10-15).

God never intends for us to retire from spiritual activity. The Bible says we can "still bring forth fruit in old age." Even as Jesus kept the "best wine" for the last at the wedding in Cana (John 2:10), so He seeks to gather the most luscious clusters of the fruit of the Spirit from the fully ripened harvest of our lives. You may be sure God wouldn't keep you on this earth if He didn't have a worthwhile ministry for you to accomplish. So keep on serving the Lord!