Pastor Ben’s Ponderings

“By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”     (2 Peter 1:4)

“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they
may be one just as We are One.”         (John 17:22)

It was once said of an old man that “his face was like an ancient chapel, with all the lamps inside lighted up for evening worship.” Doug Oldham, who was my favorite gospel singer growing up, had an experience that made that quotation a reality. He shared it in his autobiography.

Ethel Waters was another gospel singer who sang many times on Billy Graham crusades, and about a year before her death, Doug Oldham was able to sit with her for a couple hours one afternoon and talk with her. They were in her home and in the middle of the conversation they were having about her life, she just started to sing, just for him, the words to a Gaither song, “I Could Never Outlove the Lord”:

“I’m going to live the way He wants me to live,
I’m going to give until there’s just no more to give,
I’m going to love, love ‘til there’s just no more love,
But I could never, never outlove the Lord.”

He said it gave him goosebumps, because when she started to sing, it was as if a light had been turned on inside her and her face was all aglow!
There is no other explanation for a phenomenon like that, other than the fact that it was the glory of the Lord, shining through a lighted lamp, giving an old and wrinkled face the beauty of an ancient chapel.
That is my heartfelt prayer for my life!