Many years ago, while watching a little TV on Sunday, I watched a church in Atlanta vetting one of its senior pastors who had been retired many years. He was 92 at that time, and I wondered why the church bothered to ask the old gentleman to preach at that age.
After a warm welcome, as the applause quieted down, he rose from his high back chair and walked slowly, with great effort and a sliding gate to the podium. Without a note or written paper of any kind, he placed both hands on the pulpit to steady himself, and then quietly and slowly he began to speak:
"When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your pastor asked me to tell you what was the greatest lesson ever learned in my 50 odd years of preaching. I thought about it for a few days, and boiled it down to just one thing that made the most difference in my life and sustained me through all my trials. The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heartbreak and pain and fear and sorrow paralyzed me ... the only thing that would comfort was this verse from the children's hymn:
"Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to him belong
We are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
The Bible tells me so."
When he finished, the church was quiet.
You actually could hear his footsteps as he shuffled back to his chair.
I don't believe I will ever forget it.
-bob/janice reese
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