Download PDF Version:  Wisdom to Avoid a MidLife Crisis.06.04.16

Originally released June 4, 2016

It’s easy enough to have dreams, goals and visions for our lives.  Many authors are glad to expound on how to set and achieve our goals.  They talk about being passionate and all the important things we need to know about the topic, but they miss the target completely.

For the Christian, it is never about achieving our goals; it is not about our vision; it is not about how to develop a strategic plan.  To avoid a mid-life crisis, we must receive the Lord’s vision and work to see that His will is done and that His strategy is accomplished on earth as it is in Heaven.  This was the vision and mission statement of Jesus; it must be our vision and mission statement.

When life becomes what we want to do, what we want to accomplish, our plans and our strategies, we have wandered from the objective of accomplishing the will of the Lord, which is the reason we were created; our will must become His will.

The Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father sent by Jesus Christ, is more than willing to reveal His will.  This is a truth that Paul understood quite well.  He wrote to the Christians in Colossae that he was praying that they would, “…be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding”, and, “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Col 1:9-10).”  Paul was never concerned about a Christian’s goals, passion, vision or strategic plan.  More than anything else, he wanted them to receive revelation of what the Lord’s will was so they could align themselves with the Holy Spirit and work according to His strategic plan.

My father was a brilliant man and he was particularly skilled in developing strategic plans for groups in large corporations and churches.  One of the issues he would ask for members of a team or department to consider was what the potential problems were that could develop.  Inevitably, a problem would come up that no one had identified in the planning session.

The great thing about working with the Lord is that when it comes to His will, His strategic plan, He has considered every potential issue, potential problem and every contingency in a moment.  He knows what is coming and He knows when it is coming.  We can never know that to the extent or the precision that He does.  The Bible says that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and that the weakness of God is stronger than men (I Cor 1:25).  He has already been to the future and Jesus said of the Holy Spirit that He will reveal to us those things to come (Jn 16:13).  Revelation is available to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When we have learned to surrender and die to our will, visions, passions and goals and live for Him and His will and His vision, then there is no place for a mid-life crisis.  Will there be disappointments, struggles and problems?  Of course there will.  But when we are following our Master, consumed with His revealed will, life takes on incredible dimensions and proportions!  He takes us to places that we would never have been able to see or conceive of, so great is His wisdom and vision!

When the Holy Spirit reveals His will and the things to come, it is truly breathtaking.  The vistas that He reveals are inspiring beyond words.  When we become consumed with where He is going, then we realize that any of our plans, visions or goals would have been pale in comparison to His.  In the end we would have accomplished far less than what He wanted us to realize in Him.

I thank God for the Holy Spirit, who has shown me great and mighty things that I would have never known let alone contemplated.  I urge you to look up and to set your mind on Christ, upon the things above not on the things on the earth, as Paul encouraged the Christians in Colossae (Col 3:1).  He knew that if they did, they would be overwhelmed with the love, beauty, wisdom, and knowledge of Christ in whom ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden (Col 2:3).

So what is our goal, our strategic plan, our aim, our vision and our passion?  It is not what, but WHO – Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  Only in Christ is there bread to eat, a deep heart-felt satisfaction, that most know nothing about.  May we be filled with the knowledge of His will and the vision of where He is going!  It is far beyond what we can think or strategize about and it helps us to fly above any mid-life crisis that is wrapped up in our will.

Be free today to soar where only the Holy Spirit can take you.

Mark Biteler