Most of us think of
midlife as a crisis that explains why some folks stray from their spouse of
several decades or purchase a red sports car.
Actually midlife is a spiritual gift, an opportunity to ascend to a more
spiritually significant way of living.
It is an opportunity to pause and use your decades of life
to lead you the true art of living. If
you have the privilege of living past your midlife, I hope you will not let it
to be a crisis but an invitation to deeper meaning about how best to use the
years of living you have left.
For the past nine
months I have been leading a group of people to think about their midlife. Even
after adding more responsibilities to my job this past summer, I couldn’t help
myself; I felt an urging to offer this class.
As the minister of Congregational Care, I wanted to offer
some response to the statistics that suicides at midlife are increasing and
almost rival adolescent suicides. I have
a sense of urgency to lead people to God’s word regarding life and its purpose,
especially at midlife. The number of our
days are known only to God. Job 14:5
says: A person’s days are determined; you have
decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. He is the giver of life, and He gives each of us a life to live for His glory.
Teaching this class has been one of my
favorite ministries during this past year.
I had no idea that the five changes at midlife I thought I had already
made were redone over the nine months I was teaching. I discovered the importance of the message
about spiritual transformation at midlife was vital to my personal life and
also becoming critical for the world we live in today. I had overlooked the sentence where Iris
Peace explained: Understand this, the
more educated, or smart, or sophisticated or world-wise you are the more
mid-life crisis states you will go through.
My class members and I discovered that midlife states are constant and extend new invitations to a more meaningful life and walk with God.
The pangs of living
in a fallen world are constant and cause more despair than ever
before. If we put our hope in what this
world can give us alone, we will all give up by midlife. Now that our American economy is taking
different hits that we have been shielded from in the past, our midlife adults
can lose their way, not seeing a way to recover financially even after careful
plotting and planning. The secret to midlife
is to use the lessons from the passage of time you have experienced in order to
make whatever adjustments are required.
We need to see our lives as an adventure and believe that God gives us
life for a reason and purpose. There is
always hope when God leads you through midlife.
According to Iris
Pearce, at midlife God sends you five things you feel you have to change.
1. The Need to Replace
the Spouse [or get one].
2. The Need to Change
what type of work I do.
3. The Need to Change
where I do my work
4. The need to Change
where I live.
5. The Need to Change
me.
We can make these changes into crises if we do not
center ourselves in God’s word. God
tells us that we cannot change our spouse.
If we follow the Holy Spirit, we will start with the need to change
ourselves and then move into the other midlife
changes grounded rather than in despair.
Pray for our country and those facing midlife and all its invitations to
change. Pray for protection from despair
and suicide, rather may the church and God’s Word lead us to a spiritual
transformation at midlife.
Copyright © 2016. Deborah R
Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights Reserved.
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