I hate to imagine that God might need to say those words to me as I draw near to the end of my life. Whether it refers to ministry tasks He had for me to do, or to character issues like being more patient, less judging, more compassionate or more gentle... I don't want there to be anything left unconquered when it's my time to go.
In the book of Joshua, the unconquered land included "all the hill country." Perhaps the higher land was harder to take possession of; perhaps the enemies living there were stronger and more fearsome than those at the lower levels. Yet God promises, vs 6, that He Himself will drive them all out, if the people just step out to claim the land.
Even so, we read again and again that Israel allowed several enemies to continue living among them. (See chapter 13 vs 13, chapter 15 vs 63, chapter 16 vs 10 and chapter 17 vs 12-13.) Sometimes they tried to make the best of the situation, by making their enemies do forced labour... but the bottom line is that they didn't get rid of them, driving them out as God intended for them to do. They lived their lives with very visible areas of compromise.
It's not an inevitable thing, however, that old age means we need to settle for unconquered land or that entering the hill country will be impossible for us. In Joshua chapter 14, we read about a man named Caleb. Forty years earlier, he and Joshua had been among the spies sent to scout out the promised land. Caleb is now 85 years old, and Joshua was probably around a similar age when Caleb said to him, vs 12, "Now give me the hill country that the Lord promised me... and with God helping me, I will drive out the enemies that live there, just as He said."
I don't feel able to say what Caleb said in vs 11: "I am as strong now as I was then.... I can still travel and fight as well as I could then." No, even though I'm quite a lot younger than Caleb was, I don't feel able to say that I'm as strong now as I was in my forties; I'm already feeling at times that travelling and fighting are more costly for me now than they were back then.
But I think the real key is not that Caleb was strong. It's that he was wholehearted. It's repeated three times - in verses 8, 9 and 14. Whatever Caleb did for God, he did with all of his heart... and growing older was not going to change that.
We can all chose to be wholehearted, no matter how strong or weak we feel physically. And when it comes to taking the hill country, wholeheartedness is what makes all the difference.
