The Way Back

Another year, another birthday. My wife and I remind each other every year that it is our birthday week, jokingly asking for special attention and consideration to extend to the entire week. It is customary to accommodate the yearly request.

But not this year for me.

When I announced it was my week this past weekend, Sheena laughingly suggested to me that when you are well past the halfway mark to the finish line you get one day. As a reminder, Sheena is younger than me and not yet middle-aged. I shot back: “Wait – I think I just experienced ageism.” She smiled and said: “Just one day – so make it count.”

She is not wrong. Like some of you reading this, I am staring at the hourglass of my life….and of course, it is bottom-heavy. We do not get that back. That can feel like a throat punch. The feeling that time is passing us by, and our most productive years are behind us. The greatest threat many of us face is that feeling that our best days are behind us.

Do you believe the best of your life is behind you? Sure, those early years of making it on our own, carving out a career, and starting and raising a family are special. Nothing replaces them. But do not get it twisted.

A proper perspective of the past must include a sense of clarity about the present and a strong purpose for the future.

*Disclaimer: This stage of life is amazing. I am completely satisfied with where I am, what I have and who I have it with. But the reality is it also has its challenges as we try to peak over the next horizon. It is easy to put it in neutral and settle into life and shy away from a greater purpose and unfinished business that God has with us.

On my one day, I spent time reflecting on the years ahead on this Earth and wrote out the best way to finish my long journey ahead. Maybe others can resonate with my convictions.

I am supposed to finish what was started. I started a race, as referred to in Scripture when I became a Christian at 11 years old. I have experienced it all – ran hard & fast, slow, steady, got off course a few times, and even gained a new perspective of what the race looks like – but I am still running that race. That race is God’s purpose for my life and making it a priority to complete that purpose (Acts 20:24).

I enjoy a good time more than anyone, but my purpose is more than the aggressive pursuit of comfort. I love my weekends, but I believe God has more for me than living for the weekend.

I have mountains to climb. Battles to face. People to influence. Family and friends to enjoy and love. Examples still to set. Untapped business opportunities to explore. Paths not yet traveled. There is more to life than managing my blessings and working to get more.

Now is the time to reset for the journey ahead for the rest of our lives. Because where we go next in life matters.

This stage of life can be daunting. I believe the wise Rudy Ruettiger in the movie classic titled after his name said, “Having dreams is what makes life tolerable.”

What is your dream? What keeps you up at night? What is your purpose for the latter years of your journey?

What if I told you what God has for you is a greater purpose and meaning beyond imagination? That your best years are ahead of you and what God wants you to step into may be the most rewarding, challenging goal you have ever faced? I get it. I would love to set it on cruise control for the next 15 years and slide into retirement. And maybe that is for some people.

But not me and most likely not you. What if you went to sleep tonight and you had a dream of what your life looked like the next decade, and it was full of seemingly impossible feats? What does that dream look like?

A new career? Relationships to be restored? A move closer to loved ones? An increase in financial security? Or does that habit or character flaw you have struggled with for years disappears? Maybe that child you worry about the most is radically transformed? Would an old dream resurface that you think it is too late in life? If you are single – find love again? Or if married – establish a brand-new life together?

As big or small as the dream is – when you wake up and realize it was a dream what would your response be? Some would go back to sleep and chase that dream. Some might smile, allowing their mind to drift to the possibilities. If you are like me, you would laugh out loud, dismissing it as a real possibility.

Like Sarah in the Bible. You know – Abraham’s wife. One day three visitors stopped by to see Abraham and Sarah. The three men, sent by God, had a message for Sarah. They told her that when they came back to visit next year, Sarah would have a son.

Remember your dream? Her dream was most likely to have a child. Sarah was older (past the age to have a child) and had been unable to have children. The agony of not being able to have a child. Watching others happy with their children. The desire to be a mother but never the opportunity. Her dream slowly changed into a living nightmare.

Until now. Her dream was being presented to her as reality. And her response? Laugher. She just laughed.

“I am too old,” she said. Past the age of something like this becoming real in my life. Past my prime. Not the right stage of life. Too much time has passed. My best days are behind me.

That next year Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac. His name means “laughter.” She laughed yet again, but this time pointing to the dream that came true. “Who would have thought…” she said.

It is not too late, and you are not too old in life to experience Jesus in a life-changing, miraculous way.

I do not know what that means for me or for you, but I trust God will show it to me. It may be big, or it may be small, but it is found as we open ourselves up to the possibility of more to this life, more in this life. God has more for us to see and be.

Experience should be the best teacher. It is easy to have regrets at the halfway point of life. It is terrifying to have added 30 or 40 years of regret after that fact.

Refuse to settle into the easier things at this stage of life. If change is what is needed: change is what it will be. Overcome obstacles. Do not think the cards you hold is what must be played. Discard the bad and draw something new.

We have access to a living God. A power is available to us in the person of Jesus. Get on your knees and pray to Jesus and get up and walk in the faith He is with you. Do not stop running.

Instead of dismissing or laughing at our dreams, let us lean into the promises of God.

I do not know about you, but I am certain I will not give birth to a child anytime soon. But there is another dream in my life and yours waiting to be birthed. Just maybe what God does in the latter half will be the greatest curtain call of all. That we can look back and, like Sarah, laugh and say, “Who would’ve thought….”

Hebrews 12:1b …let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.