Respect

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 24th of August, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Psalms 32:8.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.”

Then we go to Psalm 34:11:

“Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” 

Fear of the Lord - meaning reverence, respect. I want to say to you today, we need to listen to old people. I am talking to young men and young women. They will show you where the potholes are in the road. They will show you about the cul-de-sacs, the one-way streets that you go down, having to turn around and go back again, wasting valuable time. They will show you the right direction. Remember, shortcuts are not always the quickest way home. A lot of young people don’t understand that. I was one of them and it cost me dearly, many times.

When I go into the rural areas of Africa, one thing that has always amazed me and endeared these precious people to my heart is that they have a great respect for age. You will go into a village where they don’t have much and there will be an old man there with white hair and when he wants to talk to the people, they will gather around him in one of the huts and they will put a chair in the middle of the room, and they will all sit around him and listen to his advice. 

Folks, we need to understand something. We think we are clever - we are not that clever. If we had to do away with cell phones, iPads, one that I am using at the moment, and computers, some young people are struggling with basic arithmetic! Take away that calculator and they cannot add a simple sum together. They need to calculate, but an old person doesn’t need that. My wife, Jill’s dad, was an incredible mathematician. He could take his pen and run from the top to the bottom, six figures, and add them all up without making a mistake! We battle to get one column together and get it right. We need to respect older people.

You know, Thomas? We always call him “doubting Thomas” I want to stand up for Thomas today. Thomas always enquired of the Lord. I don’t think he was a doubter, I think he just wanted to know. He said in John 14:5-6:

“Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way,…”

Today, don’t despise and don’t have little patience for senior people. They have so much information and so much wisdom to give you. Just give them a chance to talk to you, and most of all, the greatest of all, Jesus Christ Himself, He is waiting to hear from you today. 

Jesus bless you and goodbye.