A Midlife Owner’s Manual
When you have a car, you can always find the owner’s manual in the glove compartment. I know that YouTube video tutorials are incredibly helpful now, but let’s remember that time not too long ago before the Internet was available on our smartphones.
What is the most reliable automobile reference guide that you could ever hold in your hands? The owner’s manual! Why? Precisely because it was written by the company that made the vehicle.
It’s placed there by the manufacturer of the vehicle to tell you, as the driver of the vehicle, everything you need to know about how to properly use, maintain, and troubleshoot this vehicle that gets you from point A to point B in life, every single day.
This has happened to every driver: a warning light comes on the dashboard that you have never seen before. Immediately, a sense of confusion, concern, or frustration sinks in. Questions start to flood your brain: How urgent is this? Am I in danger? How much might this cost?
It would be unwise to drive on without first consulting the owner’s manual. Yet this is precisely what happens to many believers who get lost, confused, concerned, and frustrated in the middle of their own story, especially as we reach midlife and beyond.
Confessionally, we declare that God’s Word is true because we know that the Manufacturer authored it. But practically, in times of trouble, when the warning lights of life turn on, we aren’t always quick to take the Owner’s Manual out of the glove compartment of our lives.
I will briefly illustrate this from the story of a man I counseled.
Ray’s day started out like any other. He was off to work, drinking his cup of coffee and reading Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional as he always did. It was a routine day, with a routine annual medical physical appointment later that afternoon.
Ray was somewhat active, ate relatively healthy, and didn’t have any concerning signs. He was energetic and still holding on to the occasional surge of youth, despite being closer to 100 than 0! He was expecting to be in and out of the doctor’s office quickly. But during that appointment, and the operations that followed, Ray’s world radically changed.
After the surgery, the weight and shock of it all hit him. He now felt like he had no future. He hated going out because he envied everyone he saw. He looked back on his life and concluded that most of his dreams had evaporated, unfilled. He spent more and more time alone and lost interest in what used to excite him.
However, Ray’s life was by no means over. There were many things he could still do if he wanted. Yes, the diagnosis and operation changed his life in a unique, even extreme way, but Ray still had many opportunities to chase and blessings to count.
Yet Ray simply hated being this new Ray. He told me his story with bitterness, discouragement, and anger. As I listened, it struck me that if I had not known Ray went to church and confessed to be a Christian, there would be no hint in his narrative that God’s Word in any way informed his perspectives on life.
His belief in Scripture and the way he had dealt with the painful particulars of physical disease somehow existed in two different chambers of his heart.
What about you? While your story may be different than Ray’s, embedded in it are the typical struggles of getting older that we have been considering the last several weeks: an unexpected event, a new awareness, and foolish interpretations leading to the “8 D’s of Aging (dissatisfaction, disorientation, discouragement, dread, disappointment, disinterest, distance, distraction).
When the warning lights of life in a fallen world start to flash, do you immediately open the Owner’s Manual that the Manufacturer provides? Or do you try to make sense of life on your own?
God’s Word is our most reliable manual on the proper use and maintenance of a human life. It speaks with power and practical wisdom to every human experience. It is impossible for it not to address the issues of your life, because life is precisely what it is all about.
Written by the One who knows everything from before creation to beyond destiny, it contains everything we need to live life as it was meant to be lived in the here and now.
P.S. many of you have been replying to this Wednesday’s Word series suggesting or asking that I write a book on aging. As it happens, these devotionals in October and November have been adapted from, or inspired by, a book I wrote more than 20 years ago called Lost in the Middle: Midlife and the Grace of God.
My team and I wanted to give new life to this “aging book” 😜 so we redesigned the cover and added questions for personal reflection and group discussion. Go to PaulTripp.com/Lost to discover the beautiful second edition of Lost in the Middle.
A Prayer for Today: God, when I get lost, confused, concerned, and frustrated in the middle of my own story, I’ll admit that I have reached for other things outside your Word. I have been tempted to rely on my own strength and abilities in ways that neglect what you have communicated to me in Scripture. Please forgive me, and please grant me the grace to turn to the Bible in times of plenty and in those times of want when I’m grasping at other people, places, or things to help me. Lord, I need you…help me to recognize how much I need you when life gets difficult. In your name, Lord Jesus, amen.
Discussion Prompt for Children
1. What is a warning? What does a warning try to do for someone? How is a warning helpful to someone? Why can a warning be scary?
2. When I have warned you about something in the past, why do you think I was giving you a warning? How is me warning you connected to my love for you?
3. Who do you think knows you better than anyone else in the universe? What is the main way that God chooses to communicate with you? How can we listen to him when he communicates with us? What can we do each day to listen to God?
Reflection Questions
1. When the warning lights of life in a fallen world start to flash, do you immediately open the Owner’s Manual of Scripture that the Manufacturer provides, or do you try to make sense of life on your own? Why do you think it’s so easy to neglect God’s Word in times of difficulty? Why do you think it’s so easy to try and rely on your own strength and capability when trouble comes along?
2. How have you seen God’s Word be a reliable Owner’s Manual for you in the past? How have you witnessed the Bible providing light for your darkened path before? Take some time to remember and reflect on the ways Scripture has been that source of light and guidance for you when life has been difficult and confusing.
3. Is there a disconnect between your day-do-day life and what you say you believe about Scripture and God? Are there two chambers of your heart that need to come together so that your stated belief system and functional living combine into one life of trusting the Lord?
4. Why is the Bible more than a box to check each day? How does your approach to Scripture need to change that it might be actively folded into your words, actions, thoughts, feelings, and deepest beliefs?