Teluk Kuantan Region
“Time is almost up” — Later Life
Near the kids swimming are women doing laundry or taking their afternoon bath in the river. Nenek joins them nearly every day. She is in her late 70s, and is one of the elder ladies that is respected as a keeper of knowledge in her clan. Her brother, who was one year older than her, recently passed away, and she is the last of her siblings left alive. She is quite aware that her time could also come soon.
People in the latter stages of their life tend to focus more on earning spiritual merit by fulfilling the requirements of their religion (ie: the Five pillars of Islam). With her remaining limited time, Nenek makes sure that she doesn’t miss any opportunity to earn merit, and faithfully goes to the mosque for prayers as often as she is able. However, Nenek daily struggles with the fear and anxiety that she won’t have enough merit when she dies to enter Paradise.
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
1 Timothy 5:1-3 (NIV)
- Pray for the elderly people who are now currently facing this crisis of reality that they will continue to have restlessness about their spiritual state that will lead them to seek out assurance of salvation in Christ.
- Pray for dreams that will clearly speak to people like Nenek about God’s provision of forgiveness.
- Pray that God would call to Himself people of peace among the elderly who would be willing to discover the truth that lies outside of their traditional worldview. Pray that they would also become the starting point for a clan to hear about the Gospel message.