Marriage in Your Gun Lap

Dannah Gresh: In any conversation, you might need a variety of things from your spouse. Robert Wolgemuth explains how he and his wife Nancy approach their communication.

Robert Wolgemuth: Every time we talk about a situation like this, we say, “Okay, do you just want a listening ear? Do you want some thoughts, like, ‘How does this sound to me?’ Or do you want some ideas, like what I think you ought to do?”

It’s so helpful to kind of break it down like that because sometimes I’m not looking for advice. I’m looking for a nod or a smile and a hand to hold.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for June 18, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Do you love a man who’s either in his retirement years or getting close to that time of life? What are his needs in this time? How can you help meet them?

With Father’s Day just around the corner, we wanted to address these questions with Nancy’s husband, Robert Wolgemuth. He’s the author of a new book called, Gun Lap: Staying in the Race with Purpose.

Yesterday on Revive Our Hearts, Robert explained where that title comes from. He said, “Gun Lap is a racing term. The gun goes off when the race starts, but in the longer-distance competitions, they also fire that gun when the lead runner enters the last lap. That’s the gun lap.” Robert uses that as a metaphor for the race of life. We want to make sure we don’t give up. We want to run well all the way to the end.

If you missed yesterday’s program, you can catch it by scrolling back in your podcast feed, or at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Let’s listen to part two of a conversation Nancy and I had with her husband, Robert Wolgemuth. We left off yesterday talking about the feelings of uselessness that men often have when they enter their gun lap years. We’ll pick up that conversation today by examining how a wife can help her husband through that transition.

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Dannah: What are some things that Nancy’s done that have been really helpful for you to combat that emotion?

Robert: Well, let’s start at our neighborhood. We live on a street with just a handful of homes. How tempted am I . . . I mean, I’m an introvert, and, actually, Nancy is an introvert, too. I’m tempted to just drive by a guy mowing his yard or washing his car. Nancy has encouraged me to stop; put the car in park; get out of the car; walk over to my friend and talk. Say, “Hello. How’s your day?” and catch up on baseball scores or the weather or whatever.

She encourages me to go ahead and push myself into a connectedness. That’s such an important part of this. Don’t let yourself be isolated. Those are decisions that you can make. You can get up out of your La-Z-Boy, and you can go do something.

One of the men who’s been my friend all my life, he’s my older brother, has been a mentor for decades. Sometimes older guys like me are intimidated by that. These younger guys are high-tech. They know music and movies, and they can easily speed past me talking about stuff. But they would love to have an older friend. My brother has figured that out. He and I have spent lots of time talking about how he does that. And the truth is, he says to me, “Robert, this is a gift I’m giving myself day after day.”

So a wife can play a huge role, not in nagging, but in encouraging him, or saying, “Get up. Come on, let’s go for a walk.” Those kinds of things that give you a new breath of fresh air. Nancy has been amazing in that way.

During the last year of sickness and COVID, I’ve been tempted to just kind of hunker down in a cave. Nancy has walked into my study with her walking shoes on, and she’s put her hand out, and she’s said, “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.” That’s been incredible.

Dannah: I love that.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think you do that for me more than I do that for you. We both need it. (laughter)

Robert: Okay, so everybody can see us laughing about that.

Dannah: Yes. Well, what I hear is that Nancy’s been propelling you as your email hasn’t been calling in need, and as those relationships that were your co-workers and so forth, that the purpose of helping them hasn’t been there; that she’s propelling you towards other relationships and other purpose in stopping and talking with your neighbor and encouraging other people.

Robert: That’s right.

Dannah: Our friend, Bob Lepine from FamilyLife Today, explains that this time of life can be a real struggle for men as they re-examine priorities and how they measure their sense of usefulness.

Bob Lepine: I think one of the things my wife Mary Ann is having to deal with as I look toward this new season of life, that it is a different season of just being aware of the fact that there’s going to be some loss for me. There may be some emotions that she’s not used to seeing from me.

I remember when we became empty-nesters, a big part of what had been Mary Ann’s life for decades had now shifted. She’s not day-in, day-out caring for the kids like she was, and the house is quiet. She’s having to make some adjustments, and I had to be aware of that in that season.

Well, as you step out of a full-time career or maybe transition into whatever this new chapter is going to look like for you, there’s going to be some experience of loss. Guys are getting hit with emotions and realities that are new to us. We’re trying to process that, and like most men, we process more internally than we do externally. And so a wife may just notice that her husband is acting weird, acting strange. He may not even be able to put words to what he’s dealing with.

I’m hoping that most wives can do what Mary Ann has done for me, and that is give grace in that moment. Understand that this is a new season, and it’s hard to walk through. There are challenges. Be available. Be empathetic.

I think this is important: Don’t try to get your husband to have to verbalize or to tell you or to share what’s going on. I know inside of you, you’re thinking, That’d be so helpful. It would be so good if he’d do that. If he’d just open up and we could talk about this. It’d be good for me. It’d be good for him.” Well, he may not have words for it yet. He’s still processing things internally. Give him some space. Give him some grace.

Pray for him, because this is a challenging season as guys start to make adjustments. He’ll get there. Mary Ann got there as an empty-nest mom in a new season. Guys will get there. They just need a wife who can continue to be a helper, a supporter, and not try to force conversations that maybe your husband’s not ready to have yet.

Nancy: I think for us, Honey, it’s been really helpful for both of us as we’re in some transition seasons of our lives in different ways, to talk about these things and to take the time and have the kind of open relationship which, if you haven’t been developing that leading up to this point, it’s going to be hard to star. But for me to be a safe place for you to say, “This is what I’m thinking. This is what I’m feeling.”

And for us to talk together and counsel our hearts about:

• What is God’s perspective on this?
• What does God’s Word say about this?
• How should we think rightly about this?

That’s what being a friend and a companion is in this season of life, and we both need it at points.

Robert: Oh, I love that.

Dannah: Holly Elliff reiterates that theme that wives are able to encourage their husbands and remind them of the truths of God’s Word.

Holly Elliff: I love that as wives one thing the Lord allows us to do is to just remind our mates of the truth. In 2 Timothy 1, Scripture tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. And sometimes our guys just need to be encouraged that the Holy Spirit who lives within us promises in verse 14 that He will guard the good deposit which He has entrusted to us. And that is one thing He’s done in the lives of our men.

Robert: Every time we talk about a situation like this, we say, “Okay, do you just want a listening ear? Do you want some thoughts, like: ‘How does this sound to me?’ Or do you want some ideas, like what I think you ought to do?”

It’s so helpful to kind of break it down like that, because sometimes I’m not looking for advice. I’m looking for a nod or a smile and a hand to hold. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ve been in business my whole career, my whole life. I traffic in answers and numbers and data. Sometimes I just need a listening ear—somebody that’s a safe place for me to open my heart.

We often say, “Well, I’m going to talk to you because you’re my wife. I’m going to disclose this to you.” And never do I feel like, “Uh-oh. I shouldn’t have done that.” Nancy has a wonderful listening ear.

And when I need counsel or advice, she does that, too.

Dannah: What you’re saying is so important for every marriage, no matter what stage or season they’re in, that we would stop and listen and say, “What are you feeling? How are you facing this day?”

Bob and I just did that this morning. That first point, Robert, of, “Do you want me to just listen?” . . . Because Bob said, “I feel this way.” I listened, and I didn’t want him to feel that way. I was heartbroken that he felt that way about some things that we’re walking through right now.

And then said, “I feel (and I say what I felt since I’m here) hypocritical because I didn’t like the way I showed up in life yesterday. And so coming into the studio is a little hard for me.” And Bob immediately rushed to, “You’re not a hypocrite!” I didn’t need him to rush to that. I know I’m not a hypocrite. I know that in my head, but I needed him to hold my heart and just hear it.

So you’ve got to stop and listen and then ask, “Well, do you want some advice and some thoughts on that?”

Robert: Exactly.

Dannah: It doesn’t matter what season you’re in. We all needed to hear that today.

Robert: That is so good.

Dannah: Well, Robert, I’m learning a lot. Thank you for sharing your heart with us so that we can understand our husbands. Don’t be nervous, but thousands of women are listening and hanging on your every word right now.

Robert: I’m not nervous at all.

Dannah: Somehow I thought not.

What’s another thing our husband may be struggling with as he heads into his gun lap?

Robert: He’s going to struggle with his marriage. The joy of talking about this is that I’ve got three brothers who are at various stages. Two are older and one is younger. But in a conversation with my older brother, I said, “Okay, Sam, help me here. What is something important that you are learning now in your gun lap?” Because he’s transitioned. He’s highly respected, on boards of directors, CEO of companies.

He took a deep breath, and he said, “Your marriage. Don’t neglect your marriage.”

And that absolutely nailed itself to me. Years ago I rode on a private jet with a man whom I respected so much. (Of course he did very well, or he wouldn’t have owned a private jet.) But we were zooming to New York City, and I’m sitting there in this supple leather, sipping out of a real glass on an airplane. I said, “This is amazing.”

And he said, “You know what? I wish I could share this with my wife, but I can’t. We don’t love each other at all. I’m doing this by myself.”

I was probably in my thirties when I heard that. I flashed back to that when I was in my conversation with my brother. I thought, You know, it wouldn’t be worth it. It wouldn’t be worth it to have a private jet zooming to New York City if I didn’t love my wife, and she didn’t love me.

So this is a good time to pay close attention to that. You may, in fact, need a caregiver later on in your life. And wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a caregiver who’s not just some strange nurse, but somebody you love, somebody that you’ve poured your life into? That would be your wife. This is a great time for that.

Dannah: What are some things, Robert, that can help keep a marriage fresh and engaged?

Robert: Well, the magic three words are: I love you. In fact, we say, “I love you,” instead of “gesundheit” when we sneeze. We say it a lot.

Dannah: I like that. (laughter)

Robert: Early in the morning when I’m up in the Word, if there’s a verse that kind of pops out on the page, I send a text to Nancy. Now, she was up much later than I was, so she may still be sleeping. But when she wakes up, she’ll get a text from her husband that’s some encouragement from God’s Word.

Dannah: That’s precious.

Nancy: I love those, Honey.

Robert: You just don’t stop doing that stuff.

Dannah: I’ve known for a long time that you do that for Nancy. Sometimes she’ll read that passage of Scripture, share it with me, what you’ve blessed her with that day.

As I was reading your new book, Gun Lap, I was shocked to find out at what age you began to have the resolve to do that, and it was an encouragement to me as a wife. So first, let me ask this: Robert, at what stage of your life did you start getting up at, you call it, “Dark 0-30 hours,” to be in the Word before your wife wakes up? At what stage in your life did you start that?

Robert: When I was in the fourth grade, because I had to deliver the Tribunes. I had to get up early so the guys drinking coffee would have a fresh newspaper in front of them.

Dannah: So the mornings were important. You’ve shared that your mornings, as you were in the busyness of the height of your career, were filled with getting right to work. At a certain point in your life, the Lord called you to spend those early-early hours in the Word.

Robert: This is going to be an encouragement to listeners, Dannah, because, really, my wife was my inspiration—this was my late-wife, Bobbie. I was married almost forty-five years. She loved God’s Word—not so she could teach it, but so she could soak in it—just for the beauty of God’s Word.

So when I got up at “Dark 0-30,” more often than not, she was already up in the Word. I got lazy. I’m thinking, Well, we’re one. So I’ll let her be the Bible reader, the Bible studier. What a foolish thing to think! So when she stepped into heaven in 2014, the morning after her funeral, I sat down on her red chair, and the Lord said to me, “Robert, it’s your turn.”

And so, honestly, this isn’t boasting. It’s true that since October of ’14 I probably have missed ten mornings since then. And this, again, is a gift that I’ve given myself. And in the joy of reading God’s Word, I’ve thought, Now, here’s a great verse for Nancy.

In fact, this morning when I sent a particular verse to her, in parenthesis I wrote, “This is your verse.” (I don’t even remember what it was.)

Nancy: It was the verse about enjoying the Lord late at night—something like that.

Robert: It becomes part of our conversation every day. “What is the Lord saying to us by way of His Word?”

Nancy: And I’ll just say, as a wife, what an incredible gift it is to know that your husband is—whatever time it may be—seeking the Lord, reading the Word, praying. He doesn’t have to have a theology degree or it doesn’t have to be rocket science, but just to know that he has a heart to seek the Lord.

What confidence that gives me, Honey, in your thinking, your input, your decisions, your processing . . . We both have feet of clay. We both stumble. We both experience temptation and struggles. But to know that both of us are really moored to the Word of God and to our relationship with Christ, that does so much in our marriage of keeping it on the right track, keeping us on the same page when we know that both of us are really seeking the Lord personally and then doing it together.

Robert: Yes, that’s right.

Dannah: When I first heard that, I was really encouraged. It’s not that you weren’t deeply in the Word before that 2014-ish time. You would have been in your sixties, Robert?

Robert: Yes. I’d been teaching Sunday school for thirty-five years and probably by that time had written eight or ten books. So, yes, exactly. But I wasn’t taking that time. In fact, I’ve had good conversations with pastor friends. I say, “Okay, I know that you’re in the Word to study for your sermon, but how about just for the fellowship, just the one-on-one with the Lord—not so you can use it or preach it or outline it. How about just the experience of God’s Word going straight to your heart just for the sake of doing it?”

Nancy: I’ll tell you, again, as a wife—and I don’t mean to brag here about my husband—but probably the single greatest image in my head that makes me love this man is the times that I have stumbled into his office, not knowing he was in the middle of prayer time, and to find him on his knees praying.

Seeing that has been an incredible gift to me to know that, again, here’s a man who is depending on the Lord, who’s not running on his own strength, who’s looking to Christ for wisdom and grace in this season. And, Honey, that just draws my heart to you so much. I’m just so grateful for that gift.

Robert: Oh. Well, I’m such a sinner. I know it. If I don’t do that, then I forget who I am in Christ, and I turn loose of His grace.

Dannah: So, Robert, what’s another thing that our husbands might be struggling with in their gun lap years?

Robert: One of the things I’ve discovered, Dannah, over the years is that some men, even men my age, when they were young they heard people speak into their lives and say things, like . . . In fact, there was a brilliant editor who worked for me many years ago. He said when he was in kindergarten, his teacher said to him, “You will never make anything of yourself.”

I mean, first of all, the teacher ought to be arrested. But isn’t that amazing? This was probably forty years later, and my friend still heard that voice.

Dannah: My husband calls that the tape that won’t stop playing in your head.

Robert: Oh, that’s it. Yes. And so that tape has to be replaced. God’s Word is filled with replacements. But your wife, this woman that God has given to you, can also replace, can kind of play over it. It’s like when you taped over your VHS. (laughter)

Nancy: For those who remember that.

Dannah: Even the fact that we’re talking about tapes and VHS does say there’s some gun lap situations happening in the studio today. Right? (laughter)

Robert: That’s right. I won’t tell you the story about a guy who taped a Western over his daughter’s wedding on a VHS tape—never to be returned.

Dannah: Oh no!

Robert: Oh, yes. Stuff like that.

So, yes, here we are. We’re in the gun lap, and some of the younger women listening to this are going, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But just let us enjoy this, okay? Don’t stop us.

So, yes, one of the things that inspired me way back to start this project of asking guys and experiencing this gun lap was lying in bed in the middle of the night. (Men my age understand this part because we wake up at least twice in the night.) I crawled back in bed, and I couldn’t sleep. I began to criticize myself. I began to hear voices. I know that sounds like some movie—but I did. I heard voices.

I was like when I walk through the living room in the darkness of the night and stumble across an ottoman or something, and I say to myself, “You jerk! You fool. What’s the matter with you?” Or I open the car door and hit my head, and BANG! And then I go, “Oh, man. What’s the matter with you?”

That self-conversation can be devastating. It can be deadly.

So in a conversation with a very good friend, who is also a pastor, I told him about this. He sat there, like he gazed at me like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I realized that he’d grown up with grace-filled parents. In fact, Nancy knows his mom and dad—she knew his mom and dad very well. And because his parents had poured into him about his brokenness, but the wonder of God’s grace, he didn’t have that same problem.

So I’m talking to men who know what it is to feel like an idiot and to say that to yourself. And I’ve spent time with a guy who says, “You know, God’s grace covers that. I’m okay. I’m good to go.”

That self-conversation’s a big deal. The trick is: Don’t listen to yourself. Speak to yourself. Argue with that guy. Argue with that fat guy who’s saying, “Nah, don’t worry about it,” or “You’re a jerk. You’re a fool,” or “You’re worthless.” Speak back to him words that the Lord is giving you that are filled with redemption and hope. It makes a huge difference.

Nancy: The way we’ve said this to women over the years in the context of Lies Women Believe, it’s the truth that sets us free.

Robert: That’s right.

Nancy: I’ve said many times that we need to learn to counsel our hearts according to what’s true. We speak the truth to ourselves. It’s kind of like taking yourself by the nape of the neck and saying, “Self!”

Robert: “Wake up!”

Nancy: “Here’s what’s true. Here’s what God’s Word says is true.” So when those haunting voices or those tapes from the past begin to play in our heads, we counter those lies with what God’s Word says is true. This is why it’s so important what you’re doing, Honey—and what we’re both committed to do—which is soaking in God’s Word so that that becomes our reflexive response to those moments when the voices in our head are telling us things that aren’t true.

Robert: I’m sure I’ve heard you say a thousand times, “Counsel my heart according to the truth.” That’s a huge thing.

Dannah: So, you know what I’m hearing, Robert, as you share your journey into a deeper place of intimacy with God and His Word? It’s never too late to develop new patterns for how we treasure and use God’s Word.

Robert: That’s right.

Dannah: I’m thinking there may be a friend listening right now who longs for her husband to be in the Word, who longs to walk into her husband’s study and see him kneeling on the floor there. She’s discouraged because her husband isn’t texting her a verse for the day. She doesn’t see her husband hungering after God’s Word.

What encouragement could you offer to her right now?

Robert: Well, I’d start with helping your husband find a friend who does that. Sometimes counsel that comes from our wife is discounted. That’s a terrible thing to admit. But if it comes from a friend, somebody that I know and trust—and the better person would be not a professional, not a pastor, but another businessman, somebody my age—who my wife respects. Maybe she knows his wife, and he does some of these things.

The other thing I would say is desperately be on a treasure hunt to find things that you can affirm your husband about because a kind word, encouraging word is so much more motivating than hours of nagging and saying, “Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” Again, desperately looking for ways to affirm him.

Dannah: I love that!

Robert: And then there’s nothing wrong with occasionally saying to your husband, “You know what I would love? I would love for us to spend some time together in God’s Word.” So start this journey holding hands. Give him a taste of what it means to read God’s Word, to spend time in God’s Word.

There’s no reason in the world why my wife can’t be an example in this area. I told the story about my late wife. She was an amazing example to me. So take your husband by the hand and have some fun with this. Spend a little time together reading God’s Word. Maybe you’re a better reader than he is, so ask him to listen, and you read some passages that might be an encouragement to him.

Give him an opportunity to prime the pump so that he can begin to experience that together, so that he’s connecting the joy of listening to God’s Word with his wife’s love for him. What a great combination!

Nancy: And, Honey, that reminds me of a passage I’ve been meditating on in the last couple of days. I’ve been journaling in 1 Corinthians, chapter 8. Paul talks to these Corinthian believers who knew a lot but there was contention and division and spiritual immaturity. He says in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “Knowledge by itself puffs up, but love builds up.”

I think there are men who react, and understandably, to a wife who thinks she knows everything about the Christian life. She’s got it all down. She knows what he ought to be doing. And some of that knowledge might be right, but if it’s not grounded in love, if it’s not tempered by love, then it’s destructive rather than building up.

Robert: That’s right.

Nancy: So the affirmation, the encouragement for those things that are praiseworthy and God honoring goes a long way in our mate, in either direction, being motivated to pursue after the Lord.

Dannah: Yes. It’s easy to see that the glass is half empty, but we cannot forget that the glass is half full. We can take those things that we do have and say, “Wow! Honey, I’m so grateful that you go to a weekly discipleship group. That encourages my walk with the Lord when I see you do that.”

Or, “Honey, I’m so thankful that you go to church with me. I have a friend who’s in so much pain from being spiritually single. I know I’m blessed that you walk into church with me every week.”

Those things have to be affirmed and treasured and acknowledged.

Robert: That’s so good.

Find things that you both laugh at. I know that sounds like silliness, doesn’t it? Well, that is the point. It usually happens later at night, when I can get kind of giddy.

Nancy: He’s turning into a pumpkin and then the fun conversations really start. (laughter)

Robert: That’s right. And you’re like a rooster crowing in the morning, and I am done. In fact, I say that, “I’m finished.”

Just find things that you both find humorous and fun. The computer is filled with bad stuff, but also there’s YouTube videos that we’ve found that just make us laugh. Nancy loves to listen to me laugh, and I love to listen to her laugh. It’s kind of a binding thing. It’s fun.

Nancy: I know everybody has different personalities and temperaments, but I think we women can often be very task oriented and check-off-the-list oriented and serious about everything that needs to be thought about and done and dealt with. But I think it’s important if our marriages are going to flourish in this gun lap season of life, that we as women are fun; that we’re enjoying our husbands; that we’re not just loving them with agape love, but we’re loving them with friend love, to enjoy the things they enjoy.

Last night we went to an organ concert.

Robert: Um . . . I think we’ve lost some people right now.

Nancy: That was our date. I’ve got to tell you, I’m not a huge organ fan. It’s not my favorite instrument in the whole world. I can take it. But Robert loves organ music. A friend of ours invited us to come to this special private little concert. We did it, and we had fun.

And Robert is sitting there . . . I could feel the tears. I mean, he’s so moved. He’s so enjoying this. It was a great organ and a great organist. We’ve never done it before—I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again—but it was a really fun way for me to encourage something that my husband so enjoyed. That gives me enjoyment to do it with him.

Robert: Yes. That’s my favorite thing, Honey. You know what I loved? When this opportunity popped up, you said, “Absolutely! Let’s go do that!” And that meant a lot. That was telling me that you know what I love, and I love that.

Nancy: One of the things I realized, Honey, when I was reading Gun Lap—from cover to cover in one sitting last night—is that these are things that you don’t want to wait until you’re in your gun lap to address. These are things you want to be addressing when you’re in your twenties and thirties and forties. So you’re laying a foundation that, by the time you get to your gun lap, there’s going to be fruitfulness and flourishing and not scrambling to figure out, “Who am I? and What do I do? and How do I have a purposeful life?”

Robert: That’s so good.

So you played tennis as a girl. I know this about you. I’ve gotten some intelligence on this.

Nancy: Well, that would be a little overstatement.

Robert: Okay. So if you’re coaching a tennis player, what you say is, “Pull the racket back before the ball comes across the net. Don’t wait until then. Be ready.” That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?

Nancy: Yes.

Robert: Just be ready. Don’t be surprised because it’s coming.

Dannah: Here’s Bob Lepine with another reminder for wives:

Bob: Your husband may need a season where he just rests a bit and tries to just pull back, and he’s not doing a lot. He’s thinking about the new chapter. Let him have some space to kind of enter into this new chapter rather than expecting him to just flip a switch and go from one way of living to a new way of living instantly. He might need some time to process that, and some time to rest from what has been years of busyness and activity—just to take a breather.

But if you’re six months into that, a year into that, and your husband has started to develop into a routine of rest being the new normal, and he’s sitting with the remote and watching a lot of Jeopardy or whatever it is, that’s where you can come along and say, “Can we talk together about ways that maybe we together could invest ourselves in things so we don’t just settle into complacency, but we are still active for the kingdom? Maybe not as active as we were, or in different ways than we were when we were in our thirties, forties, fifties, but we can have new ways to be active.”

You can be an encouragement just by gently talking to your husband about, “What are ways that our life can have significance and purpose and meaning for the kingdom in this chapter of our lives?”

Dannah: That’s such a great reminder from the co-host of FamilyLife Today, Bob Lepine.

We’ve been in conversation with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and her husband Robert. We’ve been talking about Robert’s newest book. The title again is Gun Lap. I think your husband or dad would be so encouraged by the principles Robert shares in this book.

For information about how you can get a copy, contact us at our website, ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959.

I want to remind you that Revive Our Hearts is a listener-supported program. That means we depend on donations from listeners just like you. If you’d like to be a part of sharing the message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ with women all around the world, why not become a member of our Partner Team? Head to our website, ReviveOurHearts.com. Click where you see the word, “Donate.”

And right now, we have a special way to thank you for your donation. It’s a booklet compiled by Nancy called 50 Promises to Live By. So when you make your donation to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, be sure to ask for this booklet by Nancy. Again, it’s our way of saying thanks when you make a gift of any amount to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. Nancy?

Nancy: It’s interesting that this conversation is taking place right in the middle of a series we’re airing on the life of Joshua. And since I was a young woman, one of the aspects of that story that has so inspired me is found in Joshua chapter 14, where they get to the Promised Land. And Caleb, who was Joshua’s partner in believing God, said, “We can take this land because God has said we can.” He believed the promises of God.

And now he’s eighty-five years old. And Caleb says, “I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me. [That was forty years earlier.] My strength now is as my strength was then for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day” (vv. 10–12).

And he says, “I want to do more for the glory of God” . . . at eighty-five!

Robert: I love that!

Nancy: I’m thinking: You know, we don’t know how long God will give us. We’re not promised that at eighty-five we’ll be as strong as we were at forty—that was supernatural, no question. But I think that’s inspiring to us to say that now I’m in my sixties, you’re in your seventies, Honey, and we have listeners of all ages listening: What can we believe God for in this season of life rather than just saying, “Oh, I’m going to take it easy and live for myself.”

This is a call to really be intentional about serving the Lord and others even as we do get older and into our gun lap.

Robert: That is so true. This is a great time to do that. We have less responsibility, less obligations, less distractions. What a great time to do that.

Helping you help your man, Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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