Just Can't Stop Praising the Lord!

"Brother Howard, will you lead us in a testimony service?" the pastor asked at church last night.  There was a small crowd for the midweek service, but it seemed almost everybody had an uplifting testimony, especially an exuberant saint in his 90th year. Still preaching, when my husband gave him the microphone he told of meeting up with someone at a service over the week-end who had been saved under his ministry over 50 years ago.

"I had been asked to preach for a brother, and I was working a job at the time, also," he related.  "I was just getting into my message when this little girl, about 16, she was, very pretty in a white dress, came up and stood in front of the altar."  He said he was irritated about being interrupted, since he had made so much effort to get there after work and he didn't think anyone should break the anointing when someone was giving the Word.

"What do you want?" he had demanded brusquely, to which she replied, "I want to get saved."  He replied that there was no better place nor time than right here and right now, and she was gloriously saved.

"When I saw her yesterday, she was thanking me for leading her to the Lord.  'If I hadn't gotten saved, I wouldn't have gone to Bible school,' she said, 'And if I hadn't gone to Bible school, I would not have met my husband.  If I hadn't met my husband, I would not have my wonderful sons,' she said, with tears in her eyes. That meant so much to me!" he finished.

"Tell about the Holy Ghost!" his wife prompted from her seat at the piano.  "That was good!"

"Well, I didn't want to take too much time," he admitted hesitantly, "But it turns out that after she got home and was still rejoicing and praying in her room, she had the wonderful experience of being baptized with the Holy Spirit.  She was praising so loudly and making a racket, that her father heard her and told his wife,
'Make her shut up!'"

"Her mother couldn't get her to be quiet, so she put her in the closet!  That didn't stop her, and she is still praising God after all these years.  That  meant so much to  me," the old preacher said, wiping his eyes as he sat down amid appreciative applause. 

I thought of Jeremiah, who said in the chapter 20, verse 9 in the book by his name, "Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name.  But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forebearing, and I could not stay."

Or Paul, in I Corinthians 9:16, when he says, "For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of:  for necessity is laid upon me; yea woe is unto me,  if I preach not the gospel!"

I think the old preacher feels the same way.