The reason regret tends to hit us so hard in midlife is that for years we have been convincing ourselves that the problem isn't really us. Perhaps that is the biggest and most tempting lie that all of us tend to embrace ... our greatest problems exist somewhere OUTSIDE of us. This is an attractive distortion because we are surrounded, in this fallen world, by people and things that are not operating as they were designed to -- so there is no shortage of available things or people to blame. We can always find someone in our lives who hasn't responded to us properly. We can always find unfairness and difficulty in the situations and circumstances that we have had to go through. And it will always be tempting to see this as proof that the fruit that we are harvesting actually belongs to someone else.
So why is it that the regrets of midlife hit us so hard? And can we turn them around as occasions for significant spiritual renewal? Paul Tripp offers four possible explanations that I will loosely paraphrase:
1. We have tended to be our own personal con man. Kris Lundgaard points this out very powerfully in his wonderful book, The Enemy Within. A con man appeals to something for which we have a very strong desire. Perhaps he offers us something we would not normally be able to afford at a seemingly bargain price [think beachfront property on the Gulf of Mexico]. Or maybe he offers us quick release from an area of personal obligation [perhaps a quick and easy relief from debt]. The "hook" of the con man always offers us something we crave. In our sin, we offer ourselves spiritual beachfront property that is in reality a stinking swamp of sin. Or he gives us what anyone who is aware of his sin craves: freedom from guilt. Yet it is this very deepening awareness of sin that God uses to draw us into a greater dependence on Him and into a greater celebration of His grace. When we play the con man and offer ourselves false atonement, we take ourselves off the moral hook. In doing so, we not only get in the way of His sanctifying mercies, but we set ourselves up for moments of shock and dismay when it becomes glaringly clear that we were not, in fact, as righteous as we thought.
2. We have signed a premature armistice agreement with our sin nature. In the war with Iraq, the United States learned that one of the most important decisions in a time of war is when to declare victory and sign a peace agreement. If this is done too soon, the enemy is given an opportunity to do more damage in a covert war than he did in the traditional overt front line combat. This leads to confusion and an unnecessary loss of life and many needless injuries. The cessation of major battles does NOT mean that the war is over. A good general knows the difference between a series of single battle victories and total victory in the larger war.
This is exactly what we too often fail to remember in our wars with sin. Because God has brought us to Himself and delivered us from many sins, we begin to live with a peacetime mentality. Yes, we ARE new creatures, and yes, the controlling power of sin over us HAS been broken, but the presence of sin still remains. This means that the great moral and spiritual war still rages on within each of us. Thus, this is NOT the time to invest in the luxuries of leisure and peace, because shooting, bombing and pillaging still rages on. We live as if there were peace but THERE IS NO PEACE!!! We cannot allow ourselves to confuse single-battle victories of sanctification with the ultimate cessation of conflict when Christ returns. Sin and righteousness, the flesh and the Spirit, are at war. There is no peace, only battles won and battles lost. Peace has been purchased. It is guaranteed. It will come. But until then, the war of wars never ceases. The delusions of victory, and the feeling of peace that follows, sets us up for the shock and disappointment of midlife regret. We sadly must admit that we are still being bombed by an enemy -- sin -- that we may have believed we had long since defeated. This what Paul spoke of in Ephesians 6:10-24 ... what makes each of the dimensions of our lives so difficult is that each one is a spiritual battleground. He reminds us that our struggles are not against flesh and blood. People and situations are not our real problem. Our problem is that all our relationships and situations are taking place in the middle of a great war.
3. We feed the beast and then are surprised when we get bitten. Do you remember when the famous tiger tamer Roy Horn, of the renowned tandem Siegfried and Roy, was mauled by a tiger under his watch during a performance on October 3, 2003 in Las Vegas? As an aside, has it really been 8.5 years since that happened? Seems like 1-2 years to me. But isn't that just like life in midlife? The attack happened when he was alone on stage with a 600 lb. tiger that was refusing to obey. In a spontaneous act of authority, Roy Horn bonked the tiger on the forehead with his microphone. In anger, the tiger lunged at Horn and clamped his jaws around Horn's throat and dragged him off-stage while the audience watched paralyzed in horror. Horn was all too relaxed and in dangerous proximity to the beast. Had he not been, he would not have ended up in the ICU fighting desperately for his very life.
The Bible present the enemy as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour [1 Peter 5:8]. Perhaps like the zookeepers, the lion tamers, et al. we most often get bitten when we have been feeding the beast. We get ourselves in trouble when we feed the beast little morsels of our hearts and lives. No, we don't really intend to get swallowed up, but we tend to be overly naive about the danger we put ourselves into ... about the presence, power, attractiveness and danger of sin. All of us, in our individual ways, feed the beast every day. We harbor bitterness or envy. We permit ourselves that brief lustful look or thought. We permit moments of anger against our children or our spouses. We allow ourselves to be comfortable with our materialism or greed. No, we aren't committing the "big" sins, but we are sowing subtle and sadly acceptable seeds of sin that will someday reap a harvest of regret. The regrets that we face in midlife more often than not result from our being much too casual in our every day battles with sin.
4. We have bandaged our wounds without healing our diseases. If we have the typical boils of MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, on our bodies that continue to reappear, we shouldn't be satisfied with just putting Neosporin ointment and Band-Aids on them. We should realize that there must be an underlying infection in our system that is causing these boils to recur. The boils are not really the true problem and unless we treat the MRSA, the boils will never really go away.
So it is with our struggle with sin. It is very tempting to think that bandaging the sores will alleviate the disease. But we should know better. Consider the words of Christ as He confronted the Pharisees in Matthew 23:25-26: "Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." Christ is basically saying, "You guys have it all wrong! What you are attempting to do will never work. You try to exchange good behavior for bad behavior [the outside of the cup and dish] but that will never work, because the heart [the inside of the cup and dish] has not been addressed. Only when the heart changes will lasting change take place in your behavior as well."
Too often we are satisfied with the Pharisees' approach. We hold our tongues. We walk away. We avoid tough situations. We make changes in our relationships, circumstances, schedules and locations. All of this serves only to fool us into thinking that we have dealt with the "disease," when really all we have done is alleviate the symptoms. We think lasting change is taking place but the causal system of the heart remains unaddressed. If our battle with sin could have been solved by behavioral therapy/techniques or strategic changes in our situations, locations, relationships and schedules then Jesus would not have had to come to earth and suffer and die on the cross. The golden promise of the new covenant work of Christ is a new heart! There is no other way. There is no other hope for fallen, sin-riddled humanity.
Lastly, what does all this have to do with midlife regret? Our externalism [dealing with the symptoms of sin] tricks us into thinking that we have dealt with much more than we actually have. Because of this, when we enter the looking-back period of midlife, we tend to get caught up short. We begin to see patterns that we thought we long ago dealt with have, in fact, continued. We start to realize that what we thought we had conquered continues to plaque and defeat us so many years later. It can really become a time when we cry out with Paul, "What a wretched man I am!" When we look at these four factors that collectively form the Great Astonishment of Midlife and consider how they impact its regrets, it is no wonder that we get surprised, shocked and saddened by our legacies. When our harvest comes in, it can hurt to admit that it is really ours. This can be a very significant moment. Because now we are able to see, likely with greater clarity than perhaps we have ever been able to see along the way, and as a result, this can be a moment fraught with both danger and potential. This moment of personal honesty and truth can be either crushing and paralyzing, or it can be the beginning of a remarkably new phase of redemptive insight, change and personal celebration.
To be continued ...
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