Usefulness of Older Workers
31
full of the matter that you will be able to bring forth from the treasure
house of His Word things new and old.
Your experience should not be ten, twenty, or thirty years old, but
you should have a daily, living experience, that you may be able to
give to each his portion of meat in due season. Look forward, not
backward. Never be obliged to tug at your memory in order to relate
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some past experience. What does that amount to today to you or to
others? While you treasure all that is good in your past experience, you
want a brighter, fresher experience as you pass along. Do not boast
of what you have done in the past, but show what you can do now.
Let your works and not your words praise you. Prove the promise of
God that “those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish
in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age;
they shall be fat and flourishing; to shew that the Lord is upright: he is
my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him” (
Psalm 92:13-15
).
Keep your heart and mind young by continuous exercise.—
Selected
Messages 2:221, 222
.
Efficiency May Constantly Increase
Our ministers who have reached the age of forty or fifty years
should not feel that their labor is less efficient than formerly. Men of
years and experience are just the ones to put forth strong and well-
directed efforts. They are specially needed at this time; the churches
cannot afford to part with them. Such ones should not talk of physical
and mental feebleness nor feel that their day of usefulness is over.
Many of them have suffered from severe mental taxation, unre-
lieved by physical exercise. The result is a deterioration of their powers
and a tendency to shirk responsibilities. What they need is more active
labor. This is not alone confined to those whose heads are white with
the frost of time, but men young in years have fallen into the same
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state and have become mentally feeble. They have a list of set dis-
courses, but if they get beyond the boundaries of these they lose their
soundings.
The old-fashioned pastor, who traveled on horseback and spent
much time in visiting his flock, enjoyed much better health, notwith-
standing his hardships and exposures, than our ministers of today, who