Life Crisis

As every male matures into adulthood at some point they will hear someone use the term ‘Mid Life Crisis’.

And as we progress into our years, not only will we continue to hear the term used with more frequency, but each of us in some way or another will come to terms with it. As for me… well let’s just say I never envisioned a time where I thought I would experience this.

I turned fifty a few years ago and it didn’t hit with any more or less significance than any other age. Although, the number it self seemed to imply some kind of bench mark. But now at fifty two I find that over the last few years my mind has been wandering more frequently and deeper into introspection. Reviewing my life, my choices… my mistakes! The review isn’t all that pretty and to be brutally honest I have made an absolute mess of things. As I look at the sum total of who and what I am and as I simultaneously turn and confront what every man must at some point in his life, his ‘Mid-Life-Crisis’. I have come to realize that society and the machine that fuels our capitalism. The very mechanism that is responsible for spreading the tale of woe and misery for anyone found wanting at the door of ‘Mid-Life-Crisis’. IT has deceived you, me, all of us. Every male that will advance down the corridors of age is marching to the beat of societies drum so he can be prepared to meet his “Mid-Life Crisis”… AND IT LIES!

Now I find myself sitting on the door step of “Mid-Life-Crisis”. And it isn’t a mid life crisis at all, it is a total and complete crisis.

IT, opened IT’S door but I couldn’t go through. Because IT, was not what the machine taught me to believe. It taught you, me and all of us to reach the door of mid-life so you can look back upon all that you have amassed. All the things you did because you weren’t going down with a bucket list. You were not going to be the guy standing here at IT’S door and say; If only I…” NO, not you, YOU DID IT! I know I did. I was confident that as I approached this mid life door my ducks were in a row. Sure there were more than a few things I can’t do but that any of us would love to do money permitting. And for a time I had the money, all the money I could spend. But it meant nothing. If it really had any value, I would pursue it again. But I had reached in some way or another most if not all my goals. I was here without any thoughts of; “Oh if only I…” I went after life, and on a few occasions I caught it briefly. And I did and still do the family thing. I have a beautiful wife who loves me, three grown, to almost grown children that although each may be wayward in one way or another have a solid belief in Jesus and His sacrifice for us… as do I. And that brings us to the crux of the matter. Because, not only do I have a solid belief in Jesus, I love Him! I want to give all that I am and have to Him! I have wanted that for the last thirty years. But I also had my niche to carve out. MY niche! After all I had to look and be the part. I had to reach my mid life with my salvation in hand my Christian family by my side and a career I could be proud of as I begin to pass gracefully into old age.

DO YOU SEE THE LIE? I sit here looking back at what the world says is a successful life. Sure, I have my share of mistakes. But it looks a lot like it is supposed to. It looks just like I tried to make it look. And as I summarize all that I have reviewed over my fifty two years of life. I can not think of a single thing that I can present to God and proudly say; “I tried my best… for YOU”. Oh, I tried my best, but it was for me and for what I wanted. I really have no idea what God may have wanted. I was to busy preparing for mid life.

If I had listened in the beginning it wouldn’t be this way. If I had understood; “Be in the world, not of the world”. If I had; “Sought Him first” or “Hated my life and this world, picked up my cross and followed Him”, it wouldn’t look like this. I thought I was doing all those things. But after Thirty years where is the evidence? And as I reflect back I wonder how or why I thought that I was pursuing God, when in reality I was pursuing my own agenda and bringing God along for the ride. The answer for me began at the most miraculous moment in my life, my conversion. As I think back I realize that from the moment of my salvation all the way up until this point, everything I have done has been to pursue MY life with God walking beside me. Allowing Him to glorify Him self inside of MY life and my agenda. WOW! Did I miss the boat!

It’s not that I haven’t tried to live a Godly life, I have. And it is not as though I haven’t lived as a Christian, I have! But at twenty one years of age I knew what I was being redeemed from. And I thought I knew what it meant to Love God, and to serve Him alone as my King. To pin my ear to His eternal door post and live the remainder of eternity as His servant. But I got confused as to when all that was all supposed to begin. I began to walk the walk and talk the talk. I was relishing my new relationship with God and enjoying all the ways He was blessing and redeeming MY life. It has been an awesome, but pain filled walk for over thirty years. But now here I sit on the door step of Mid Life, looking back at all that I have accomplished. And every last bit of it is an example of what ‘I’ had wanted to do while expecting God to keep in step with me along the way. And now I realize that somewhere in my past I made a turn and God didn’t and I just kept right on walking. Walking so far away that now I can’t even see Him anymore! He is still all around me and still moves in awesome ways. After all He is still God. But all that I am, all that I created is the sum total of what “I” have wanted to become. And now I sit here staring ‘Mid-Life-Crisis” in the face and I realize that I have nothing to offer the God I say that I love and serve! Nothing that’s any better or any different than any other man that walks this planet. I sit atop the pile of garbage that I have amassed and survey the empty wasteland that I have created. My mistakes (although different) are just as devastating as the ones I made before I gave my life to God. And all I am at 52 years of age is a little cleaner version of the filthy man God redeemed thirty years ago.

That is my Life Crisis! For thirty years I have marched to the drum beat of this world and tried to make God a part of it. Never realizing that there was another path, Gods path, the path He expected me to take after He bought me. God’s path may have even been the same path as the one I took. But I asked God to follow me on my journey instead of me following Him on His. And fifty two years later all I have to show for it is what belongs to this world. I have yet to build anything of substance for the next.

I pray He will redeem my time left here on this planet again and allow me a chance to do something wonderful for Him before I am kneeling at His feet. But more importantly, for “YOU” I pray that you understand what Jesus meant with all those crazy, totally committed statements about what it would take… what it would mean to give up your life for His.

I always viewed my life, my Christian walk as a shared thing with Him. He has his part & I had mine. He got his ten percent, I got to spend the ninety…

I was so wrong.

It is all His. Every breath I take. And all I want to do with what I have left is spend it for Him. What ever that means! No agenda, no purpose but His. To pursue the thought of walking so close with Him while I am still here, that it won’t feel any different when I walk the streets with Him there.

I Love Him more now than ever before, and regret so much the time I have wasted.

Eternity does not begin upon our end here on earth. It began for each of us the day we were born. And what eternity will look like for all of us when we can finally see it, is dependent upon where your heart lives while you are here. 

Please don’t follow the world’s path into your mid life crisis… but exchange it for His while you are still here. Learn to walk hand in hand with the one who bought you while you still breathe this air.

His only agenda is to know and love you and be known and loved by you.  

God Bless!