Fresh Vision from a 94 year-old

Billy Graham, having just reached his 94th birthday, has recently announced a post-US election campaign to ‘bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every possible place in America before his 95th birthday’. He says ‘no election will ever solve America’s most basic problems…because the trouble, at its root, is in the human heart…’. Graham says ‘although my age and health have limited me physically in recent years, I plan to spend the next 12 months … doing all that I am able to do in helping to carry out a fresh vision God has given…’

What an example and inspiration to those of us who feel the years are passing by, our strength is weakening and our best years are over! As Craig Groeschel, a speaker at the recent Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit said ‘If you are not dead you are not done!’ We all have an active role to play in addressing the issues of life and country.

In South Africa, in addition to the many things we can give to thanks to God for, we know that we are facing a number of major issues including joblessness, poverty, crime, violence, corruption, a crisis in leadership confidence and the continuing breakdown of morals, values and the stability of family life. Many of us ask where the nation is headed and how quickly.
The Manguaung conference , the South African government, the media nor the traditional healers will provide any certainty about rectifying our collective ills. As Billy Graham says, the root cause is the condition of the human heart.

What can we, as RUC congregants, do? Well:

• we can start by obeying the Scriptures that exhort us, in 1 Peter 2:17 and in 1 Timothy 2:1-3, to pray for our leaders.
• we need to be intentional about spreading the Gospel and earnestly seeking God’s changes in the hearts of those people that we are able to influence.
• We can ensure that in every part of our lives we honour God and obey him from a heart of love.

In these times, our witness to everyone, our family, workmates and friends, of the work Jesus has done in our individual lives is essential if we are to change the world around us – one life at a time’ irrespective of our age!