Midlife Is A Crossroads, Not A Crisis

Last year, I was sitting with an early twentysomething grad student in our church. He said he was looking for an older man to mentor him, and I started thinking through our godly, wise men in their 50s and 60s. He stopped me and clarified: He was asking me to mentor him. “Wait, you think I’m old?!”

I’m 42, and to be fair, I’ve been told I’m an “old soul” my whole life. Some have wondered aloud if I was born old. While I still don’t feel old, I’ll admit this new and strange season has spurred me to go looking for wisdom.

I’ll tell you, reading about midlife is depressing.

According to studies, happiness in life follows a U-shaped curve. Our self-reported happiness starts high in childhood, then decreases into adolescence and further into early adulthood. It bottoms out somewhere around age 46—smack in the center of middle age—before beginning to rise again and steadily increasing into our twilight years. Further, studies have shown that depression and anxiety also are highest around the age of 45.

Despite all the bad news, Good News for Midlife: Navigating Middle Age with Guts and Grace was encouraging. Writing from his early 50s, Jared Wilson, associate pastor of pastoral ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, understands the challenges of midlife but also provides refreshing hope for those of us finding our own way through.

Understand Midlife

Most definitions place “middle age” as 40 to 60, but it’s probably more accurate to describe midlife in terms of its demands and responsibilities. For me, it looks something like this:

• I still feel energetic, but it takes far longer to recover from lost sleep, injuries, and travel.
• My kids are now teenagers, and some days, I only see them for a half hour.
• Our grocery bill is three times our first mortgage.
• Our parents are in their 70s and now need more support from us than we need from them.
• I think I’m still in touch with modern culture, but my kids assure me I’m not.
• I may have 40-plus years left, but it sure feels like most of my life is now behind me.
• Most deeply, I’m frequently reflecting on life’s disappointments and griefs, wondering if I should have done this or that differently.

This is middle life. We’re too young to feel old. But we’re also too old to feel young.

Wilson, who writes specifically for men entering or inhabiting these decades, acknowledges all these challenges. “But,” he writes, “while this season presents unique challenges . . . midlife also presents exciting opportunities to trust Jesus for personal, marital, and spiritual flourishing” (xi).

Thankfully, Wilson helps us reframe the demands and opportunities of middle age not as a necessary crisis but as a critical crossroads.

Crossroads, Not Crisis

For almost 60 years, pop culture has made “midlife” nearly synonymous with “crisis.” The phrase comes from psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques’s 1965 essay “Death and the Mid-Life Crisis” and has been repeated across dozens of books ever since. (There’s even a board game called Mid-Life Crisis, where players aim to accumulate wealth and avoid landing on bankruptcy, divorce, and nervous breakdown.)

This is middle life. We’re too young to feel old. But we’re also too old to feel young.

Fortunately, recent studies suggest fewer than 20 percent of Americans experience a full-on crisis in these middle decades. Despite this, many of us face a unique temptation to flee from responsibility or forge some entirely new life. Wilson puts it poignantly: “Whether you’re in a crisis or not, at midlife you’re at a crossroads” (16).

At this crossroads, we see down one path the allure of individualism and freedom from responsibility. We might simply call this path the road of empty promises. As the proverbs say, it seems right, but in the end, it leads to death (Prov. 14:12).

The second path is one of embracing reality, stepping deeper into relationship, and trusting the goodness of God. This road offers no promises other than the hardships of real life. But it’s also where we discover the true opportunity—giving our lives away to others. Wilson offers, “Maybe what [you need] in the second half is . . . a new vision, a renewed spirit of adventure and a commitment to do everything for the glory of God. . . . This is how you become great” (98).

While the world may offer us the usual advice to build a life for ourselves, we know true happiness comes not in escaping relationships but prioritizing them. Even secular philosophers have discovered the most important rule of midlife is “to care about things other than yourself.”

If this is true—and, of course, it comes originally from Jesus himself—then flourishing in midlife and across the second half should be about making the most of our relationships.

If we can reject the path of empty promises and embrace the harder, more fruitful way of relationship, then we can begin to see middle age as a time to leave a meaningful legacy.

Craft a Spiritual Legacy

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “You have countless guides in Christ, but you do not have many fathers” (1 Cor. 4:15). In the same way, most young men today have countless guides. From celebrity preachers to fitness influencers on YouTube, they have an unending source of content. But they don’t have many spiritual fathers. Wilson explains,

The work of a spiritual fatherhood includes teaching, but more than that, it includes life-on-life investment, the sharing of quality time, the breaking of bread, and rejoicing and grieving with others. It means giving of ourselves to another, so that what is good and godly in us might pass along to them. The Lord uses our precious proximity to build up others. (137–38)

At a time when we middle-aged men are wondering if our lives even matter, the possibility of leaving a spiritual legacy becomes invigorating. And, as Wilson shows us, it’s not about doing impressive and significant things before large crowds; it’s about having a deep influence on a few. A lifetime of steady faithfulness in relationships and responsibilities can be our gift to those closest to us.

A lifetime of steady faithfulness in relationships and responsibilities can be our gift to those closest to us.

My friends, this is good news. This season can be our best. We still have some energy and we’re gaining much wisdom. Of course, it isn’t easy. But within all the relationships and challenges lie this season’s greatest opportunity: finding our lives by giving them away.

If we’re staring into the yawning chasm of middle age, the uncertainty and heaviness can lead us back to the graciousness of the Father, the friendship of Jesus, and the power of the Spirit.

In Good News for Midlife, Jared Wilson reminds us to embrace our midlife crossroads, find new meaning in service to others, and let this season be an opportunity to discover grace upon grace in Jesus.