Heart Strings
Heart Strings
Turning 50 - with regrets?
Friday, June 24, 2011
I turned 50 this week. Thankfully, no one hung black crepe on my house, brought black balloons in a hearse, or sang Happy Birthday in a minor key. No vultures circled over my head. I haven’t even gotten an AARP card yet or begun to discus my bowel movements with total strangers. Turning 50 sounds a lot like decay and spoilage–like that freaky moment when the dairy has eclipsed its expiration date and every one passes it from nose to nose making that squenchy, uncertain face while shaking their head from side to side. The milk has turned…the milk is turning…its rancid, feculent, putrescent. I’ve turned 50.
I’ve looked forward to turning 50 ever since I turned 49. It should be self-evident that the alternative to aging is death. That casts aging in a whole, new and positive light–as getting older is certainly preferable to getting deader. As I have turned to reminisce as all older people do, I have been surprised at what regrets me. None of the things I usually hear people opining about from a hospital bed are true for me. I have been deliriously happy in my marriage and family all of my adult life. I have traveled far wider, seen more amazing things and met more amazing people than I ever hoped to when I was young. Serving Christ in the ministry has been the single greatest honor of my existence and one of the richest and most rewarding lives I could have imagined. I have hunted and hiked thousands of miles of trail, scuba dived beautiful reefs, caught fish till my body ached, and tracked more elk, deer, bear, and cougar than I could count. So what do I regret?
Surprisingly, my greatest regrets come from my youth. I was a good kid by most standards–that’s because I had biblical parents. I never drank alcohol, did drugs, or smoked cigarettes. I did not attend wild parties or sleep with girls and ended up marrying pure. I was an honor student faithful to church and went soul winning every week. I never ran away from home or rebelled against my Dad and Mom. I won a bunch of sports trophies across five disciplines, went to good colleges, graduated valedictorian, and entered the ministry two years earlier than most of my peers. So what would I regret?
Do you remember your childhood–your first and favorite things back there? My favorite thing to do as a young child was to play in the pear orchard with my brother (long since paved over and turned into a strip mall–the pear orchard, not my brother). What grand times we had building forts, catching horny toads, staging dirt-clod fights, and watching Monarch butterflies come out of their chrysalis sporting wings like stained glass windows. My favorite place to go with my Dad was to the German Baptist bakery during strawberry season for the most unbelievable strawberry milkshakes and hot cinnamon rolls this side of heaven. While I looked and lusted after many sports cars, the first vehicle I spent money on was a Honda motorcycle and later a more sensible Buick Riviera (loaded). While I had many girlfriends from first grade on, my first true love was a girl named Becky (and no, I’m not Tom Sawyer). I also remember youth camps where God got a hold of my heart and squeezed until my eyes bugged out and church services where many of my public school friends got saved.
It all sounds so idyllic, doesn’t it? Trust me, it wasn’t. My family moved around every few years for reasons I won’t go into here. But I digress–I will save my regrets for things I had control over. Most of them have to do with me. I regret not being MORE as a teenager. I was given all of this awesome parenting, preaching, and possibility and I squandered it on being mediocre for Christ inside. I regret not being more out-and-out as a spiritual leader in my youth group. I regret acting like a jerk to the girls I liked instead of showing them what a truly spiritual gentleman could be. I regret being intimidated by peers and allowing them to temper my witness. I regret those few times when I ran across weathered, dirty pictures while shooting guns with my Dad and I looked instead of turning away. I regret my argumentative attitude with my Mom and arrogance with some of my teachers. I regret coasting for Christ when I should have put the pedal to the metal.
To whom much is given, much is required (Lk. 12:48). It was all right in my hands. It was all around me. I had no excuse. I wish God would just call it a mulligan and give me a do-over. And now I’m 50 years old and preaching to teenagers all over America who are just like I was. Their heritage is rich. They hear the best preachers in the nation. They have parents who love and train them. But inside, they are coasting. Oh, they are great kids…but they are coasting, distracted by “fifteeness”, hormones, insecurity and pride.
David said it this way, “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD.” I say, AMEN. No wonder Solomon said, “Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.”