July 12, 2018 (Thursday)
Last month the Dallas Morning News reported that 112-year-old Austin resident, Richard Overton, our oldest living veteran, had been robbed of his savings and identity. Once the bad guys got his Social Security number, they had clear sailing to manipulate bank accounts. Incidents like that show us how low we can sink. (On July 5, his bank restored his funds. A search is on for the perpetrator).
Not only is Richard our oldest living veteran, he is the oldest man in America. When asked his secret, he replied, “Just keep living. Don’t die.” So far that’s worked for me, too.
When I was a kid, about 8 years old, I thought I had a vision when I was a passenger in the back seat of somebody’s old, black square shaped car, and immediately informed my grandmother that I would die at 26. My grandmother calmly informed me that that’s not very old. Well, I made it to 26 and now I’ve made it an additional 60 years. Guess I needed a new vision.
I love the simplicity of Richard’s formula for longevity: “Just keep living. Don’t die.”
A child’s prayer went like this: “If I should die before I wake..” Someone said that many of us need to pray, “If I should wake before I die..” I believe there are many people who need to wake up while there’s still time to be saved and start living for Jesus. Actually, what the Bible teaches us is that Christ comes to live in us and through us, and that’s better than our feeble efforts to live for Him. The song says, “I surrender all. I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
The Scripture is plain: “If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved” (Romans 10:9). When you do that, you become a new person with a brand new life. ‘Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before,” and you may then gladly follow Richard Overton’s advice, “Just keep living. Don’t die.”