So what should we do now? We may be alive and well in our midlife years but each of us carries some degree of regret. We may mourn our business or career choices. Perhaps we are carrying around a heavy weight of parental guilt. We may linger over things that we've done or even did not do in our marriages. We may have regrets over not being more serious about our relationships with God. If we're sinners living in a fallen world [and we, of course, are] then it is impossible to look back at a legacy of perfect choices.
We will carry these regrets until we are finally home with our Lord. But then, consider that future: no reason any longer to even want to un-think a thought, un-say a word, or undo a choice. We will not only be in remarkable peace with God, but we will finally be at complete peace with all of our choices and behaviors. We will have finally passed over into a regretless eternity. So there is hope for all of us.
We should also remember that it is not like we are about to die [or at least not most of us]. We are in the MIDDLE of our lives. There is still much before us. We can each participate in a real turn in our stories. As God's children, we have reason to step forward in faith, hope and courage, embracing the new life that is always available to us because of the person and work of Christ. So what kind of practical strategies are there that we may employ to this end?
1. Enjoy the freedom of confession. So what is that? It is the freedom to say about ourselves what both God and we know is true, without fear of rejection, condemnation or punishment. Confession is more than an obligation; it is one of the wonderful freedoms we have in our lives in Christ. We are free to own up to, without fear, the darkest of our thoughts and motives, the ugliest of our words, our most selfish choices, and our most rebellious and unloving actions. We are completely freed from our bondage to guilt and shame.
Confession is powerful and effective. It turns guilt into forgiveness. It turns regret into hope. It turns slavery into freedom. We are no longer trapped and things are not hopeless. Our God, the One who never changes is also the One who promises and produces deep personal change. The changes He makes in us are so foundational that the Bible's best word description is "new creation." It's as if we are no longer ourselves but something brand new.
Confession is not only owning responsibility before God and the appropriate people [those who our sin and failures have affected], but it is also refusing to be stuck in our regrets and refusing to give up hope.
2. Embrace God's forgiveness. In a fallen world, we don't really expect much forgiveness. We see the indiscretions of our politicians and leaders paraded before us by the media on almost a daily basis. Stupid choices we may have made early in our careers tend to be resurrected with every new job application. Our poor financial choices follow us for years on our credit reports and can prevent us from qualifying for mortgages, getting new jobs and even cause us to pay more for whatever insurance policy we may now be trying to buy. Married women seem to carry the coldness and insensitivity that they may have experienced from their fathers for years and decades after they have leave home. Our mothers-in-law tend to repeatedly overlook our progress from the arrogance and impulsivity that we displayed in our much younger years. Yes, in a fallen world, our records tend to go with us and gets flung back into our faces again and again. In a fallen world, it is very difficult to outlive our pasts.
This is precisely why God's promise of full and complete forgiveness is so unusual and so wonderful. God, who sees and knows everything about us, even our most secret thoughts and desires, has promised and purchased for us a blanket of forgiveness so complete that it is incomprehensible in this life. He literally chooses to remove our sins "as far as the east is from west" in His memory [Psalm 103:12]. Think about that for minute. The God of the universe, whose memory is completely exhaustive, chooses to remove our sins from His memory. Even though our very sins are a direct affront to His authority, a devaluation of His wisdom, and a rejection of His love, He is so great in mercy and grace that He is willing to erase each and every one of them from His memory. And because He does this, He releases us from our bondage to regret. We no longer must live looking backward. We are truly free to move on.
3. Embrace God's sovereignty. One of the surest and sweetest things that Scripture continuously reminds us of is that, contrary to appearances, our lives are never out of control. No, they are always under the careful, wise, loving and powerful care of the Lord. He is truly sovereign. Even though it is nearly impossible for us to look around and see it in operation, there is no situation, relationship or circumstance that is not under His control. He is always in charge. He always knows what He is doing and why He is doing it.
Now, fortunately, His absolute control is exercised in such a way that it never turns us into robots. Somehow, He is able to accomplish His sovereign purpose through the choices we make and the actions we take. His sovereignty does not invalidate our choices, and our choices do not negate His sovereignty. In the operation of the universe, the issue of the sovereignty of God and our responsibility is never an either-or; it is always a both-and. We live our lives knowing that we are responsible for the choices we make, while at the same time knowing that God controls the details of our lives for our good and for His glory.
This balance is very important to remember during the struggles of midlife. It also particularly important when we consider another incredible aspect of God's sovereignty: His timing. God's timing is always right. He never gets things out of order. He never does something too early or too late. He is always able to decide between "what is best" and "when is best." Yet in the midyears of life, it is almost impossible to look back and not revisit the question of God's timing. Still, we should take responsibility for what we've done but trust His timing. He gave us eyes to see what we needed to see at just the right moments. He taught us important truths at just the right moments. He brought people into our lives at just the right moments. He knows who we are. He knows what we can bear and what it going on around us at all times and His rule in our lives is always exercised at just the right time.
4. Clarify our identities. We as people are always measuring our potential. The toddler stands wobbling in the middle of the room and wonders if he can manage the few steps needed to reach his mother's knee. The kindergartener nervously scans all the other kids in the classroom and nervously wonders if she will be able to measure up. The teenager, starting his first job, considers his potential for success and what having money of his own will open up for him. The college freshman careens from excitement to dread, wondering if she will succeed or fail. And we, in midlife, as we scan the sins, victories, and failures of our past, wonder what options remain for us in this life. Will we be trapped by our pasts? Are things now the way they will always be?
Our assessment of our potential is always rooted in our sense of identity. The "what can we do?" questions are always attached to the "who do we think we are?" answers. The longer we live, the more we will tend to take on a sin and problem-based identity. The blinders are off, and we are no longer deluded. We have seen our harvests. And it is tempting to let these things define us. Perhaps some have been divorced and while divorce is a very difficult experience, it is not an identity. Dittos for being a single parent. While that is a very difficult experience, it is not an identity. If we allow our experiences to become our identities they will define how we assess our potentials.
There was probably no man who ever walked the face of the earth more aware of his sin than the Apostle Paul, yet he refused to let his sin define him: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" [Galatians 2:20]. His identity is not sin or problem-based, but grace-based. He is essentially saying, "This is who I am -- a child of God. When Christ died, I died; and when Christ rose, I rose to new life. Not only that, but the living Christ dwells inside of me and because this is true, I am no longer living by my own power but by the power of Christ living in me." It cannot be overstated that as we do the archeological work of midlife, we must not forget who we really are in Christ. He is our potential! He is our hope! We can change! Things can be different!
5. Plant a new harvest. The one comfort for both farmers and gardeners everywhere is that today's harvest will be followed by another season of planting and harvest. Until we die, no harvest is ever the final harvest. Our God is the author of new seasons. He is the giver of new seeds, new roots and new fruit. He causes flowers and fruit to grow where weeds and thorns once ruled. He is the God of the new harvest.
In midlife, God calls us to turn from mourning over our previous harvest to planting new and better seeds. If our parenting didn't turn out so well, maybe those relationships can be mended and restored. Or perhaps we can be much better grandparents than we ever were as parents and sow spiritual seeds into the souls of the next generation. If we let our careers control our previous lives maybe we can take advantage of the time we have left and the new economic freedom that midlife often affords and plant new seeds. Perhaps we should work less and invest in family and ministry more. Maybe we've squandered many years that we could have spent studying Scripture but we now have many new opportunities to increase our knowledge of God's Word and our potential for ministry [on-line seminary classes, evening Bible schools, etc.]. Perhaps we grieve our previous selfish lives, where all that we earned was spent on more comfortable lives for us. We can now commit to finding specific ways that we can both give and serve. We can consider which of our gifts, experiences, resources and wisdom can be best used in the service of others. As we assess our harvests, we should live with a "new seasons" mentality. Remember that the final chapter(s) has/have not yet been written.
6. Celebrate eternity. Paul makes this critical observation in 1 Corinthians 15:19 when he says, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." As we know, this life that God has called us to doesn't make any sense without eternity attached to it. It is only the hope and promise of a resurrection out of this life and of an eternity to follow that enables us to continue to live in this fallen world. This world is a terribly broken place. Nothing in us or around us operates consistently the way it was meant to. Things regularly occur that were never meant to happen in God's original creation plan. Sin still twists our desires and distorts our thoughts. It still drips, like a horrible black dye, and stains every situation and relationship in our lives. We are surely wiser than we once were, but we have not escaped our sin.
So we must accept the fact that we are sinners living in a fallen world but we must keep reminding ourselves that Christ really does live inside each of us and we must keep our eyes on eternity. Start celebrating early. We should let the anticipation build in us like a child counting down the days until he goes to Disney World. We need to keep rewinding and playing the video of eternity in our minds. The day really is coming when we will not only be released from this terribly broken world but where we will finally and forever be rescued from ourselves. In that final place there will be no midlife regret. There will be no things that were poorly done or left undone. There will be no words to take back. There will be nothing to confess and no need to repent and reconcile. There will be no unwise investments or impulsive decisions to mourn. The world will finally operate as it was meant to. Whether we are aware of it or not, every moment of regret we experience is a longing for eternity. Every instance of remorse is a cry for a better place. Every experience of guilt and shame is our heart reaching out for a day when it will all be wiped away. We should let our longing grow. We should let our celebration begin. We must live with our eyes set on eternity. It is the only way we can make sense out of what is going on now. Remember, Jesus is preparing a place for each of us even now.
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