Dear One,
I need help. Surely that often shows. I can only imagine how some of my actions must seem to someone in your generation who has seen so much happen and the consequences of those actions. That must be why Paul instructs Titus to tell the older women to teach the younger ones (Titus 2:3-4). Not only have you had more accumulated teaching over your lifetime, you have seen the effects of different choices. I need your wisdom and experience to help me sort through my own applications of those principles. The circumstances are not the same. Each new age changes how things are done and the expectations of worldly wisdom, but the principles of God’s Word really do remain the same. Help me apply those principles in my modern setting. Help me see how we are the same more than we are different. I need that instruction because life is too short to make all the mistakes myself and I do not want to learn everything the hard way.
Perhaps you have tried and your advice has been rejected. Maybe you understand something of what Noah and Isaiah must have felt when they preached to people who wouldn’t listen. If that is the case I am truly sorry, but you must do as they did and not stop telling others what you know is right. God made Ezekiel a watchman over the people. His job was to warn them. God knew the people wouldn’t listen–or at least that most of them wouldn’t–but Ezekiel was going to be held responsible for at telling them what he knew. Please tell me what you know to be true. Even if my sisters and I do not take you as seriously as we should, I beg you to at least try. Maybe some of us will. When you teach us with your kind, sweet manner and gentle voice, the burden of rejecting God’s advice will be on us and you will have done your duty–but surely some of us will listen. I know that young people tend to value their own ideas before others, but if you will patiently and lovingly show us the truth we can be taught.
Do you feel limited by your opportunities and energy to teach as you wish you could or used to? Don’t worry. God knows your limitations and He will not hold you accountable for more than you can do. If you will do what you can when the opportunity arises that will be enough. I would love to have you teach our women’s Bible Class but if that is more than you can manage then just the word or two given to the person who really needs it can be passed on to others even when you may not be there. Your knowledge can travel beyond your ability to speak and the kind hearts of those who value it will repeat it to others who also need to know what you have learned from God’s Word.
Your loving friend,
Laurie Moyer
“However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; and you have delivered yourself.” Ezekiel 3:21
