When someone says, "I'm having a mid-life crisis," my first thought is, "What took so long?" Mid-life crisis is not something that only comes to the maladjusted or the unprepared. Mid-life crisis comes to everyone who reaches that point in life where they review their dreams, comparing them to their reality. What I can tell you is this, "It ain't what you thought it would be."
I deal with people on the late side of life every day. One of the constant and consistent things they they tell me is that their life did not end up the way they thought it would - it never does. Life really isn't about a successfully executed plan A but rather a well executed regrouping, following a plan B or C or D or...
A midlife crisis is not a cause for alarm, it is a reason to retool and redirect. It is that moment in time you rethink your plans and your dreams, coming up with new ideas, new directions - a new you. This crisis we all share if we live long enough is simply the clashing of our dreams with our realities. It is not the end but simply a turn in the road. Don't fear it or run from it, instead embrace it and run with it.
Why do you think the Spirit determined that older men who were married with children were to be the leaders of the church (i.e. 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1)? And why else would he tell the older women to teach the younger women how live before God (Titus 2:3-5)? Older men and older women, especially those who have been married with children, have seen that life is not what you thought it would be when you were young. Somewhere, when enough fantasies have collided with realities, you have a crisis of life that allows you to redirect, calm down and settle in.
Some people, however, the gold chain and red convertible with gray hair type, side-step a midlife crisis and step into the midlife crazies. They quit their jobs, they leave their wives, they have their faces lifted and their morals lowered as they seek to be sought by someone younger. Rather than adjust to life as it really is, they double down and try to create the fantasy they feel they somehow missed. They didn't miss it, it was never their.
The perfect life you imagined cannot exist on a fallen planet. As long as sin and death rule, the reality will always come to a point of death and decay. It isn't a pretty picture but it is the truth. We are going to grow older, get frailer and be buried. It is appointed man "once to die" (Eph 4:29). It is not a possibility, it is an appointment. Sorry to be the one to tell you.
And yet, we are called to "rejoice always" (Phil 4:4). Why? Because sin and death only rule now. This world will pass away and we will experience the new heaven and earth of Revelation. The "old" order will pass away and the new will be established. The dream, more than that, an existence beyond our ability to imagine will be ours: Heaven!
So, have your crisis as you adjust to life as it really is but do not go crazy thinking that you must create a new and better life. God has already got that covered better than you can even begin to imagine. Let go and let God. Jus' Say'n.
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