GuideStone® was originally established in 1918 to provide financial support and assistance for retired pastors and widows. Today, we continue to carry out that mission through the ministry of Mission:Dignity®. Here’s an encouraging devotional from one of our recipients:
Lord, Plant My Feet on Higher GroundPhilippians 1:6 (NKJV)
Sam Parsons authored this issue’s devotional. He served the Lord in ministry for 48 years.
As we read God’s Word, it is amazing to find many occasions where man has hesitated or just plain stopped short of letting God place them on a higher plane of life. We give up in fear or reluctant faith, keeping us in the wilderness of sin. God has redeemed us and challenged all who believe him to go onward and to a higher place when tests come. We all struggle with anxiety, failures of the past, and fear over the future. Doubt pervades our souls. But, as the late great songwriter Andre Crouch wrote, “Through it all … I’ve learned to trust in Jesus … to depend upon His Word!” In Philippians 1:6 (NKJV), Paul wrote, “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” We are called to follow him no matter what or our age.
In the Old Testament, we find Caleb, a young man chosen by Moses to spy on the land of Canaan and see if the people living there were strong or weak. God had called them to cross the Jordan River to possess Canaan as their inheritance. With the bad report of 10 spies, Israel refused, and all died in the wilderness except those under the age of 40.
Caleb and his friend Joshua, the only two spies who brought a good report to Moses, crossed the Jordan into Canaan with the new generation 40 years later. Even in his eighties, Caleb was still focused on possessing what God had promised him and the people of Israel. He obeyed the Lord and brought down the giants of Anak, whom Israel greatly feared.
We are never too old to achieve God’s calling upon our life. Caleb didn’t want his children to live in the valley of defeat. God intends for us to live, as Caleb, on the mountain of victory overlooking the plains of defeat and death. In the valley, Israel was looking back longingly to Egypt and its way of frivolity and sin, as was Lot, his wife and family upon Sodom and Gomorrah. God has designed everything we encounter to improve us and give us more grace to move toward perfection. He doesn’t want us to live in defeat, disease or death. He plans to lead us to the place of victory as we believe and follow him.
What mountain is the Lord calling you to climb today?
Want more devotionals? Our 40-day devotional book written by our Mission:Dignity recipients is available to order here.
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Commentary
• Oct 28, 2025 