Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'd like to start by reading the Psalm I'm going to be talking about, Psalm 71. In you, Lord, I've taken refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, rescue me, deliver me, turn your ear to me and save me. Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go. Give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of those who are evil and cruel.

For you have been my hope, sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth. From birth, I have relied on you. You brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you. I have become a sign to many, but you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long. Do not cast me away when I am old. Do not forsake me when my strength is gone. For my enemies speak against me, and those who want to kill me conspire together.

They say, "God has forsaken him. Pursue him. Seize him. No one will rescue him." Do not be far from me, my God. Come quickly, God, to help me. May my accusers perish in shame. May those who want to harm me be covered with scorn and disgrace. As for me, I will always have hope. I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds, of your saving acts all day long, though I know not how to relate them all.

I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, sovereign Lord. I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone. Since my youth, God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, oh Lord, until I have declared your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come. Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens, you who have done great things.

Who is like you, God? Though you made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again from the depths of the earth. You will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once more. And I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, my God. And I will sing praise to you with the lyre, Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout with joy when I sing praise to you, I whom you have delivered or redeemed.

My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion. Here's a man, probably David. It doesn't say, but many things in that Psalm tell the people that know about these things that it was he who penned this. But I'm glad it doesn't say this was David, because we'd say, "Well, that was David."

And maybe it was another poet or a simple Levite or nobody that nobody had ever heard of, just ordinary people like you and me. And that means that all of us are included in the life lessons this man who wrote this Psalm shares with you and me. And basically, he's looking through the window of his middle age. He's looking back to the past. He's looking around to the present. He's looking to the future of his old age. And he says something about all of those stages of life.

And so we're going to try and find out a couple of the life lessons that this writer shared and I will add one or two of my own along the way. The first one, of course, he says, "You have been my hope, oh sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth." He's been hearing God's voice since his youth. I'm a little jealous. It seems like from a child. In fact, in another place, David particularly, and it must be him, talks about playing the harp and the lyre and all of that stuff.

But he says in another Psalm, a very familiar Psalm, Psalm 51, "In sin did my mother conceive me." Now that doesn't mean his mother was getting into trouble. It means that all of us are conceived and born with a sinful heart, with a bias inside of us. I don't know if any of you have been to the UK and ever watched old people play bowls—not your sort of bowls—but you get these round things and you try and hit a little white jack.

The jack goes first and the idea is to get the bowl, the big bowl, as close to the little jack as you can. And you say, "Yes, that sounds like an old person's game. Easy." But it isn't because inside the big ball is a bias, a weight, and it's off-center. So however straight you aim it, it's pulled off-center. And so the art is you have to aim it crooked to get straight. So it isn't as easy as it looks.

And that's a good picture of every baby that's born. We're born with a bias, a weight, an off-center—the Bible calls it the flesh or self—inside us. And however straight the parents aim the child, however straight the teacher aims us, the things that I would do I do not, and the things that I do not I would. It pulls us off-center. But here is a man writing and saying, "You know, I had the incredible privilege of knowing God from my youth."

Did you know the Lord from your youth? Is that the window today that you're looking through? I wonder. I didn't come to Christ until I was 18, so I can't say that I knew Him and I learned to hear His voice from my youth. But when I became a student at Cambridge, I came into the incredible privilege of hearing the gospel, the good news of Jesus. There is a heaven to go to, a Christ to take me there, and it's up to me if I want to go, if I want to be forgiven, if I want to give my life to Jesus.

And I did. I was ill in hospital at the time, and a nurse led me to Christ. And so here at 18, that's still youth. And as I look back through the window of my youth, I thank God that I only wasted 18 years, and I wanted to make up the rest of my life for that lost time. As I was preparing this talk, I was rummaging through some old things that I had brought with us to America. And it was interesting. I found an old Bible on the shelves. It's mine. It's my first Bible.

And I can't remember whether the girl, the nurse that led me to Christ, gave me this, or somebody back at college when I got well and went back to face the music and back to lose my friends and back to start the great adventure of what it means to stand up for Christ in a secular environment. I don't know if somebody there gave me this, but this is actually the very first Bible. How do I know? Well, I've written in it.

"Jill Rider," which was my name, "born June 29th, 1935. I'm very old. Look at me. Jill Rider, born June 29th, 1935. Born again February 18th." I had never remembered when that wonderful thing happened. I remembered the term it happened, the semester, but I couldn't remember the date until this week when I found this. "1953. Who seeks to live by faith, who is all things, who in all things will trust Him, because she judges Him faithful who promised."

What did He promise me? And I remember the verse I was told to memorize, "That He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." That was the promise. And my trust was put in Him who is faithful to me in all this journey of life's stages. And here I am looking through the window of my old age, able to look back and say in my youth, He has been faithful to me. And the faithfulness of God is an incredible thing.

So if it was David, what was his life's lesson? "You have been my hope, oh sovereign God." I love that. Sovereign. He is God and we are not. Life lesson. He is God and we are not. Oh, sovereign Lord, you've been my confidence since my youth. And he's talking about hearing God's voice here. Here is a man who's learning to be alone and know God. Verse 17: "Since my youth," etcetera. Learning to trust and not be afraid. Verses 1 to 5: "This day I declare," he says.

"You've been faithful to me, Lord." And then making the most of circumstances all in his youth. He looks back. What were the circumstances? Well, he had to learn to know God on his own. Nobody helped him. Why? Because that's where he lived and that's where he was. If it was David, he never played with children. He never had people around him. Just sheep and goats and lions and bears and exciting things like that.

And God. What an advantage. He didn't have to choose. He didn't have to get it on his calendar and try to discipline himself to look after his interior life with God like we do. He was alone, but never alone. And that's where he learned to be a giant killer, you see. And he learned to be a giant killer because he learned to listen to God and talk to God. Whatever that is, however that sounds like, and what that means to a man thousands of years ago and what it means to us.

He learned God. He learned to know Him. And in the measure of that, God used him mightily. That man after God's own heart. Do we know that? Can you look back to your childhood and say, "That's where I started to listen to God"? I was very interested, actually, in this old Bible to look at Psalm 71 when I started looking in this Bible. And the girl that led me to the Lord simply gave me five colored pencils.

And she said, "You read a little passage of scripture." And I remember her showing me. "You read a little passage of scripture. Here's some pencils." I said, "What are they for?" She said, "You underline with different colors a command to obey, a warning to heed, a promise to claim, something about Jesus, something about you." In different colors. And that means you're looking at the text and asking it questions and searching it to find something He wants you to do, to obey.

To find something you shouldn't be doing, a warning. To find a promise: "My power to do what you can't do in your own strength," right? To claim. Something about Jesus. Well, you say, "That must be the Gospels." No, Jesus is everywhere, right? He's everywhere. You can find Him in the Psalms. You can find Him in the Prophets. You can find Him in Genesis. Yeah. And so here we have this man saying, "I learned to know Him, to hear Him, to hear His word and to obey it."

And it's very interesting to me that I wanted to know just before I came in here. I thought, "I wonder, did I underline anything in Psalm 71?" and I did. The interesting thing is I underlined all the bits about the youth. That's interesting. "I will hope continually and will yet praise you. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy," this is King James. Okay. "My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day, for I know not the number of my days."

Interesting. "I will go in the strength of thy Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." Over and over again, more and more. I've underlined all those. So I literally picked out my youth from that Psalm and gathered a life lesson that from now on, my mouth was to tell of Him. From now on, I cleaned it up. From now on, it was His and not mine or the devil's. From now on, what an exciting life lay ahead of me.

Even in my youth, I thank God that I came to the Lord when I was 18 years of age. So how do we hear His voice? What does this mean? One of my life lessons has been the life impact I will have and you will have is related to how well you develop your life with God. Not what you know just about Him. You have to know about Him to know Him. But the time you have on the steps of your soul, as I put it.

And it helps me to be a little bit picture-conscious. I'm a visual learner and I'm a visual teacher, I think, and I love words. But little conversations I have on the steps of my soul in the deep place where nobody lives, outside God's front door. And He comes and we talk. That sort of thing. I ran to the deep place where nobody goes and I found Him waiting there. "Where have you been?" He asked me.

"Well, I've been in the shallow place where everyone lives," I replied. And I knew He knew. He just wanted me to admit I've been too busy being busy. "I'm running out," I began. "Of course," He said. "I haven't seen you in a while." He sat down on the steps of my soul and smiled at me. An angel sang, and a shaft of light brightened my darkness, and I smiled back. "I'm such a fool." "Shh," He said, putting His finger on my lips.

And He touched my hurried heart and startled, it skidded to a near stop. And my spirit nestled into nearness in the deep place where nobody goes. And my soul spoke then, and He answered with words beyond music. Where on earth had I been while heaven waited? Such grace. In the measure I know Him and learn to hear His voice through His word, in my spirit, in prayer and in His word, my impact will be in my world for Jesus. That's how it is.

So how are we doing as we look back or we are in our youth at this point? You know, they say our 20-somethings, they say they're losing their faith in their 20-somethings at university. And I believe that's true. But they tell us, "We haven't lost our faith. We've just forgotten where we put it." Somewhere they put it down. And they say, "No, we're just the same person. We still believe in God. We have questions that we didn't have before."

But the faith we had when we were growing up in church or in youth group or we went on that mission trip, somewhere we put it down. Somewhere we put it down. And they explain more and more that they need to get back to the life lesson, hopefully, that we were trying to teach them, that the impact of their life, whatever they do with it, is commensurate with how well we're doing with our devotional time with God, basically.

So what was the next life lesson? Well, this man now is looking around and growing wise. He's in his middle age. He's looking through the window of his middle age. "For my enemies speak against me. Those who wait to kill me conspire against me." Verse 10. And yes, he's keeping a healthy perspective. He's in trouble. That's why we think it is David. He's got people pounding after him. Not just people, family, like his son.

His favorite son who wants to kill him. Yeah. Can that happen to a King David, to a man after God's own heart? Where were you, God, standing in the corner of his life with your hands in your pockets, we ask? Isn't this one of your favorite children? How could you allow this terrible thing to happen? David is literally on the run, out of his palace with Absalom after him. That's just one of his enemies.

But others are speaking against him and stronger words in other translations. Terrible words. Do you have that saying, "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me"? Yeah. No? Well, good. I still can't remember which my English and my American— okay. Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. I don't believe that. I think words can hurt. Terrible words, especially from those that we have loved or still love.

Those that did love us or don't anymore. Isn't that harder than a broken bone? It is to me. And this man at this stage was in this situation. So how do you keep a godly healthy perspective? Well, he says in verse 1: "In you, Lord, I have taken refuge." He says in verse 23: "In Him you have delivered me. He's my redeemer. He's my refuge. He's my restorer of my soul. You have made me to see trouble, many and bitter troubles, but you will restore my life again."

God is his refuge. God is his redeemer. God is his restorer. He hides me. He helps me. He heals me. And so here we have David or another such man in big trouble in his middle age as he looks out his windows. So what's his life lesson? Well, he doesn't waste the pain. He lets the pain drive him to God instead of away from him. That's my life lesson too. My life lesson too.

Many pains in my middle life window. Many troubles. Little troubles and big troubles. So what am I going to do with them? I remember sitting on a plane going somewhere—all my illustrations start like that. I don't know where I was going and I don't know who I was going to speak to, but I'm on one more plane at one more time just after hearing some incredibly devastating news. I had to get in that plane and go and speak about faith when I got off it.

And I was just in shock. And as I was going out the door, the phone rang, and a friend of mine who is a prayer partner in Holland, Europe—she and her husband run a Christian radio station there. We're prayer partners. We never see each other, but we pray for each other. I hadn't seen her for a while. And she called me as I'm literally having to get on one more plane after just hearing the bad news.

And I don't want to get off and talk about faith when I'm so devastated. As I'm going out, the phone rings and she says, "Jill, what's the matter?" And I said, "What do you mean, what's the matter?" She said, "Something's the matter." She said, "It's the middle of the night here, but God woke me up and you're in trouble. What is it?" I said, "Wow. How much God loves me to disturb someone's sleep in order to help me."

And then I said, "I can't tell you because I have to get a plane." She said, "Call me when you get back. But Jill, whatever it is, don't waste the pain." That was it. And I went out the door with that in my head. What did she mean? I didn't know. Don't waste the pain. And so struggling on that plane with what was ahead of me for two days, somehow I managed to get her point. Let it drive me to God and not set me in the state of why.

"Why did you let this happen? Why? How could it be?" God helped me. I'd scribbled my pain poem down on a napkin. I didn't have paper. "Don't waste the pain. Let it prove thee. Don't stop the tears. Let them cleanse thee. Rest. Stop the striving. Soon you'll be arriving in His arms. Don't waste the pain. Let it drive thee deeper into God. He's waiting, and you should have come sooner, Jill. You should have come sooner."

And just there on the plane to run into His arms. Yes. Yes. Yes. He's my refuge. He's my redeemer. He hides me. He helps me. He heals me. That's so much of my life lessons in my middle life. The other part of that, of course, is getting on the plane. I have always been a fearful traveler. I never like flying. In fact, I used to be terrified to get on the plane. I used to have to take medicine.

And I thought, as I take my medicine to get on the plane and go and talk about faith, that somehow I had to do something about this or I shouldn't take those engagements. And so I began struggling with my fear of flying. And it's really never left me. I said to Stuart at one point, "I just like my feet on the ground." He said, "Well, that's swinging in space." Helpful.

At the time, I remember clutching him as it was a bad flight and we were going up and down. He said, "Don't hang on to me. I'm going up and down too." So none of this helps. So I have my little conversations about these things and I put them in little books because it helps me to do that. And on the back of this one, it was a conversation on a terrible flight. It was from Africa to somewhere. I was on my own. I'd just left Stuart sick, going into Mali.

That's where it was. Into the middle of the desert. He was desperately sick, and he had to get in a plane and do another two weeks in the desert with one of our missionaries. I got sick just as I got to the airport, violently sick. There was absolutely no help, no bathroom, nothing. I had to get on the plane and start that long journey back. And it was miserable.

And the weather was terrible and I'm in a plane in a country that I wonder if it's going to get off the ground. Okay. That sort of a plane. And so I'm frightened and I'm sick and I'm fed up and one more goodbye in my life. So I'm sitting there and I have this conversation. I glanced across the aisle and jumped. He was sitting in the seat opposite me and I noticed He had His seatbelt on.

"That's funny," I said. "You've got your seatbelt on." "It's good to obey the rules," He said. "I hate flying," I said. "Better than riding a donkey," He remarked. "And safer." "We're so high up," I said, looking apprehensively out the window. "You're nearer the front door up here," He said. That didn't help. Then I was really nervous. "Lord, it's not that I don't want to live with you forever. It's just, just..." He didn't help me out.

"It's just I wasn't expecting it to be today," I finished lamely. He laughed. And the plane gave a lurch and a bump and another bump and I reached across the aisle and caught hold of His hand. "Yeah." "This is fun," He said cheerfully. "So much better than a donkey." Still fear flying. Psalm 139, life lesson for me. You see me when I board a plane and ride the wings of dawn. You see me with my steward or when on my own forlorn.

And suddenly your light dispels the darkness crowding in. And dear Lord, your presence fills the homesickness within. Remind me there is nowhere else this joy is to be known. No dear one, nothing else on earth can make my heart at home. But you, dear Lord and Savior, sweet Comforter and friend. So I'll relax and draw my life from you until the end. You see me packing up my case to travel far and near.

You see me spent and tuckered out. You see me filled with fear. And suddenly I'm conscious that my world is filled with light. And you chase out all the darkness and you kiss my heart goodnight. So search my heart, all-seeing God, who knows my deepest need. Reveal to me your thoughts that steal my will, my spirit feed. You know and understand me, Lord, the bad part and the good. You know the words I'll speak today I shouldn't or I should.

And you glance in my direction from worlds beyond this earth, and you know me through and through, my God. You've known me from my birth. You watch me try to please you and go the second mile. You whisper, "Thank you," to my heart, and it begins to smile. So Lord of smiles and love and power, I'm overwhelmed by grace. Please give me strength to carry on and finish well my race. So search my heart and try my ways and lead me on your way, and then receive my spirit, Lord, and see me home one day.

I wrote that in 2011 on a very difficult trip. He's my refuge. He's my helper. And then the last window, that of old age. I wrote this in 2008. Let me finish with it. Years ago, someone sent me a comment from a famous writer, James Michener. It was about what kept him writing well into his old age. Apparently, he said, when I was 45, a farmer living at the end of our lane hammered eight nails into an aging, unproductive apple tree.

That autumn, a miracle happened. The tired old tree produced a bumper crop of juicy red apples. When I asked the farmer how this happened, he explained: "Hammering the rusty nails in gave it a shock to remind it that's its job, to produce apples." Michener apparently continued along these lines. In the 1980s, when I was in my early 80s, he said, I had some nails hammered into my trunk. Heart surgery, vertigo, a new left hip.

And like a sensible tree, I resolved to resume bearing fruit. Nails get driven into all of our lives, especially when we get older. They can cripple us or they can jolt us into using our maturity and experience to make a significant difference. Now this year, that was 2008, Stuart had some nails of typhoid fever, and I had some nasty reaction to some shots that we had to have that slowed us down a bit.

And we also had one more birthday. That was another jolt. Now that we—not that we stopped traveling, but we had a choice to allow these and other hard things in our life at that time, part for the course, to jolt us into remembering what apple trees are all about. We don't want to be a tree that is nothing but leaves. In the middle of all this traveling and jolting, Stuart and I have been getting to minister to seniors, to them.

I was going out the door to minister to our seniors a long time ago now. Well, not too long ago. And I said to Stuart, "Oh, where are you going?" He says, "I'm going to church to minister to seniors. I love ministering to them." He says, "Them is us, Jill." "No, no, seniors." Okay. Stuart and I have been getting to minister to seniors, people like us. I'm told that in the USA soon, 50% of the population will be over 50. That's a lot of aging trees.

My life's verse has been: "Now that I'm old and gray, do not abandon me, oh God. Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, your mighty miracles to all who come after me." So whatever your age, would you say you are just gray or green? Why not spend some time in Psalm 71, 90, and 92? Listen to this. How refreshed I am by your power. The godly will flourish like palm trees and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon.

For they are transplanted into the Lord's own house. They flourish in the courts of our God, and they will declare the Lord is just. He is my rock. There is nothing but goodness in Him. Even in old age, they will still produce fruit and be vital and green. And so my response: the greenness of gray in life's latest stage, a freshness of soul that refuses to age. It's grown in the garden of God in my heart.

It's the fruit of the spirit as God does his part. The greenness of gray, a freshness of mind that proclaims His great power and love for mankind. A love for the children who don't know His grace gives me purpose and reason to finish my race. Pray with me. You promise me, Lord, if I'm planted in your garden of grace, my world will see the greenness in my life and ministry and be refreshed by the fruit of your spirit. Yes, Lord, by the fruit of your spirit. Amen.