The Peril of Midlife: Drilling Down to the Nucleus of the Crisis, Part 3

So how do all these things that we have been discussing interplay with each other on the canvas of our lives?  We as people must be understood through the themes that run through the sum total of our experiences.  Usually some unsettling event serves as the "trigger" to set into play the trap that has been set for us, usually by us, in an unconscious way.

There is a way in which we don't live our lives but rather that our lives live us.  We tend to just get carried along by our locations, relationships, situations, responsibilities, opportunities and activities without stopping very long to look, listen and consider.  Huge chunks of our lives can pass by almost unnoticed.  Then we get hit with some tectonic event ... like the Titanic hitting the iceberg.  We suddenly, forcefully have our eyes opened wide.  It can be the loss of a job, a deadly illness for us or someone close to us, the undesired end of a relationship ... many things really ... but what they have in common is they provide a window into our lives that we had not previously looked through.

This triggering event thus opens our eyes and provides us with a new awareness.  We begin to see and feel things that were probably already there, but in the busyness of our lives they received no attention.  Now they are front and center.  We suddenly realize how much time has passed and how much we have failed to accomplish.  We realize our health isn't what it used to be and the realities of aging are much more noticeable.  We suddenly see how certain decisions we may have made along the way have set certain courses for our lives.  And we begin to perceive great differences between our lives and the lives of others around us.

This leads to profound personal interpretations.  The crisis of midlife is primarily about this:  an unexpected event followed by powerful new awareness, and then the resulting crisis is rooted primarily in the way that we interpret the things we are now seeing.  The problem is that as sinners our interpretations tend to be narrow and selective.  Remember that sin not only affects what we do but it also affects what we think and see.  In ways that we often don't even notice, sin reduces all of us to fools.  Scripture says that the way that seems right to man leads to death, and the way that makes no sense is often the way to life and wisdom.  That is why we all need the wise perspectives of God's Word.  Midlife crisis is profoundly theological.  It all hinges on the fundamental ways that we make sense out of our lives.  It all comes down to how our functional belief systems shape the way we respond to what life/God puts on our plates.

Midlife struggles also expose the ruling desires of our hearts.  The interpretations that we bring to events and the new awareness that we receive in midlife do not result from abstract theological truths.  Instead, the functional theology that shapes us as people and that is manifest during this period is rooted in the values, treasures and cravings of our hearts.  Thus, midlife crisis in its most basic form is not so much an event-driven crisis, a crisis of awareness or even a crisis of aging.  Fundamentally, it is more a crisis of the heart!  Midlife exposes what we have really been living for and where we find meaning and purpose.  It has the power to reveal where there are significant gaps between our confessional theology and our functional theology.  And when these things that rule us get taken out of our hands, we tend to become angry, fearful, bitter, and/or discouraged.  At its core, midlife crisis is a crisis of desire.

Lastly, we see so many people make reflexive responses when in the throes of midlife crisis and this is where we get ourselves into so much trouble.  These reflexive responses may seem logical, but in reality, they are only the twisted logic of desire.  We become trapped in the cul-de-sac of the thoughts and motives of our sick hearts.  And our responses to our new awareness will only change to the degree that we are willing to address the underlying issues of our hearts.

These five themes tend to run like cords through the fabric of the typical midlife crisis.  They need to be unpacked and understood biblically, and, in doing so, we will not only come to know ourselves better but also come to know Christ more fully.  It is only in such moments of humble, honest self-examination that we are able to grasp how wide, how deep, how full and how complete is the love of God for us.  It is also here that we can finally begin to understand that Scripture not only lays before us the wonderful promise of eternity, but it also understands the deepest issues we experience before we get there.