Purpose & Calling
I am halfway through my life and I cannot shake the feeling that this is all it will ever be. Is this really it?
“O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.”
The writer of this psalm is ageing and openly afraid of being discarded as his strength goes. Rather than asking for his youth back, he asks for something to do with the years that remain, specifically the passing on of what he knows. It is one of the few places in scripture where the second half of life is treated as having an assignment of its own.
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”
Paul is defending a ministry that has visibly cost him: beatings, imprisonments, a body wearing out in public view. He does not pretend the decline is not happening or reframe it as secretly pleasant. He simply sets it alongside a renewal running the other direction, daily and largely unseen. For anyone measuring life by what is visibly diminishing, he insists that is half the ledger.
A path forward
Write the honest version of what you expected by now and what you actually have. Naming the gap does more good than carrying it unspoken for another decade.
Find one younger person to invest in deliberately this year, whether that is mentoring, coaching or simply being available when they call.
Bring the disappointment to God in prayer rather than to a purchase or an escape. Say the ungrateful part out loud; the psalms are full of people doing exactly that.
Closing verse
“And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
- Isaiah 46:4
Coming Soon
Want to ask your own question?
Revealed is building a feature that lets you ask anything and receive a Bible-rooted response drawn from both Testaments. Join the waitlist to be first to know when it launches.