Purpose and Your Relationship with God, Part 2

Last month, I wrote Part 1 of an article called “Purpose and Your Relationship with God.” If you missed it, you can find it here. In this article, I talked about how people in my Purpose in the Third Third of Life Course helped me see just how essential it is for us to grow in relationship with God as we grow older. Knowing God more deeply and truly should be an essential facet of our third third purpose.

In Part 1 of the article, I examined why people in third third have a growing desire for intimacy with God. I discussed several biblical passages that speak to the longings and losses we experience in this season of life. Finally, I promised to write an additional article – this article – to explain practices that will help us grow in our relationship with God in the third third.

What Can We Do to Live Into This Facet of Our Purpose?

If we affirm that our relationship with God is an essential facet of our third third purpose, what steps might we take to live into this facet? How can we have a deeper, truer experience of God?

Before I suggest some things we might do to encourage this experience, I must emphasize the fact that all of this depends on God’s grace at work in us. Spiritual disciplines are not ways to earn God’s favor. Rather, they are ways to let the favor of God touch and transform our lives. I do believe, however, that certain practices can help us access God’s grace in the third third of life. I’d like to mention a few of these practices. Of course there are others. If you have found a spiritual practice to be especially helpful to you, I’d love to hear about it. Please email me at markroberts@fuller.edu.

Time with God

When we’re working hard, raising a family, and doing all the things associated with midlife, we may not have an abundance of time with God. Thus, in a season of life when we are slowing down, perhaps by retiring or letting go of previous obligations, we have more discretionary time, time with God.

As I have listened to older adults talk about their lives, I have heard them express gratitude for not having to rush through their devotions anymore. Some have gone on special retreats for spiritual growth. Others have developed a practice of prayer while walking. Still others have discovered the joy of sitting in silence before the Lord. The possibilities for third third devotional practices are vast.

Now, I should mention there is also a danger when we have more discretionary time. Many older adults fill their lives with activities that will not deepen their relationship with God. For example, a National Institutes of Health study found that “Adults aged >65 years spent threefold more waking time watching TV than young adults.” Older adults spent “25%–30% of waking time” watching television. Ironically and sadly, they “watch more TV but enjoy it less than younger people.” I’m not suggesting that all TV watching is bad for us. But don’t you think spending more time with God and less time watching on TV what we really don’t enjoy would be a good practice for our third third?

Practicing Daily Reflection

I grew up in a Christian tradition that emphasized having a “daily quiet time.” Yet most people I knew struggled to live up to this standard. It’s hard to have regular time with God when our regular lives are so full. Yet, when our lives slow down in the third third, we have the opportunity to be more consistent in our daily time with the Lord.

If you’re looking for some specific practices to do daily, I’d like to suggest three. First, take time each day to express your gratitude to God. Think about the good things in each day and tell God about them. If possible, record them in your journal. Ample scientific evidence shows that this practice enriches the lives of older adults, by the way. (See my article, “Gratitude and Lifelong Flourishing.”)

Second, many Christians find it helpful to engage in what is called the Examen or the Prayer of Examen. This practice includes giving thanks while adding several other ways to pray. With a simple structure, the Examen guides us to reflect on our lives with God. If you’re interested, you can learn more here: “Examine Your Life Carefully . . . Each Day.”

Third, pray the Psalms. For centuries, the people of God have used the biblical psalms to inspire, shape, and inform their prayers. Many have found that reading a psalm as a prayer to God each day enriches and deepens their relationship with God. This is a practice you may wish to adopt in the third third of life.

The Psalms help us express in prayer all that’s in our hearts, including the things we might ignore, avoid, or even try to hide. Theologian John Calvin called the Psalms “An Anatomy of All Parts of the Soul.” He noted that in this unique book “the Holy Spirit has here drawn to life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions” that plague our minds (Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, xxxvii). Several years ago I wrote a book on praying the Psalms, No Holds Barred: Wrestling with God in Prayer. Though this is not a third third book per se, it would be relevant to anyone who wants to develop a life of prayer based on the Psalms.

Memorizing Relevant Passages of Scripture

As we seek to grow with God in the third third of life, Scripture will challenge, guide, and reassure us. I have found that memorizing relevant portions of Scripture helps me connect more deeply with God these days. I am especially drawn to passages that offer vision and reassurance. These would include the texts I have quoted above (Isa 46:3-4; Ps 92:12-15; Ps 91:1-16). To this collection, I would add Isaiah 40:28-31, which reads:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

In a time of life when age begins to sap our energy, leaving us faint, weary, powerless, and exhausted, it is wonderful to remember that God isn’t tired and that God will renew us.

Growing in Community

The spiritual practices I have mentioned so far are ones we might tend to do by ourselves, though they could certainly be shared with others. Time alone with God is both necessary and wonderful if we’re going to go deeper in our relationship with God. However, the Christian life is not something we should do alone. Remember that God created us in community with others (Gen 1:27) and saved us into community with others (Acts 2:41-42; 1 Cor 1:2; 12:12-13; Eph 2:1-22). We need times of corporate worship and fellowship. We also need the more intimate relationships that happen in small groups or one-on-one relationships.

This is especially relevant for those of us in the third third of life because extensive research has demonstrated that good relationships are essential for flourishing as we get older. (For more on this, see “Relationships are Essential for Third Third Flourishing.”)

Conclusion

When I think about growing in relationship with God as we get older, I remember Helen, a member of the church I pastored in Irvine, California. When I began at the church, Helen was quite old and feeble, but still able to join us for worship each week. Before long, however, her body began to give out and she was confined to her bed. At one point, her doctors told her she had only a few days to live.

Hearing that news, I went promptly to visit Helen. I wondered what I would say to someone who was suffering so much and so close to dying. How could I encourage her to live faithfully in her last few days?

When I sat down in Helen’s room to talk and pray, the tables quickly turned. She told me how eager she was to be with the Lord. She shared how real Jesus seemed to her as she prayed throughout the day. In that meeting, I wasn’t the pastor encouraging a congregant in her faith. Rather, I was a young man being encouraged by a spiritually vital older woman who was living faithfully even as the time of her departure drew near.

When I remember Helen, I don’t think, “I guess I’ll save getting closer to God for my last days.” Rather, I think, “I would like to know the Lord with the kind of intimacy and immediacy that Helen experienced.” This isn’t just “one other thing” in the latter years of life. Rather, those folks in my Purpose Course, whom I mentioned in Part 1 of this article, reminded me that growing in God is an essential facet of my own third third purpose. Perhaps they will encourage you in a similar way.

I can think of no better time of life to follow the example of the Apostle Paul as he writes to the church in Philippi. So, with this, I close:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Phil 3:10-12).

Amen!