Making the Best of the Situation

 We have all heard the various versions of that bit of advice. One of my favorites is “If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade!” The meaning is obvious. Find the good in any situation and focus on that. If you have to create some good in a situation, then give it your best effort and don’t let the opportunity slip away.

In working with older adults (you decide who is older), I have learned one way to approach their situation in life is to evaluate their social and physical needs. The best working categories I have discovered place adults in one of five areas of life: the Go-Go, the Will-Go, the Slow-Go, the Can’t-Go, and the Won’t-Go. (These are not original to me, but their source is unknown.) I can’t think of any adult I have ever met who doesn’t fit into one of these groups. My intention in this part of my life is to help people in each of these groups get the most out of life they can, make the best of the situation.

We all know a member of the Go-Go group. They are the ones who put us younger folks to shame. They have energy and desire to be active and on the go. They also have the initiative to make things happen. They don’t wait for someone else to come up with the idea and get things organized. They step out in front and are ready to see life happen.

The Will-Go older adults need a little more time to get things moving. They are willing to be a part of the action. They get excited to see things happening in which they can take part. Their initiative, however, is not what it used to be, and they tend to wait for others to come up with the ideas and plan out the logistics. They may be hesitant at times in joining the group, but you can generally count on their enthusiasm and participation.

The Slow-Go adults exhibit the desire to see things happen, but feel it takes special circumstances for them to participate. Timing will have to coincide with how they are feeling on that day. Transportation may be a concern. Special arrangements for safe movement might have to be made. These adults see themselves as moving out of the mainstream of adult activities and taking more of a sideline perspective. In many cases their primary hindrance is attitude and not actual physical ability.

The Can’t-Go group is easily identifiable. They are totally dependent upon others for transportation, and their good days for spending any time away from where they reside may be few and far in between. These individuals need to have life brought to them and encouraged to be involved to the full extent they can. Again their involvement may depend more upon their attitude than upon their physical condition.

The Won’t-Go members of our older generations have a major problem with attitude. They have decided they do not want to socialize. They do not need to be around people or be involved any form of active social relationships. They are quite happy pulling back into their personal shells and telling the world to go away.

God loves each member of each of these groups just the same, and he wants them to get the most out of this gift of life he has given them. It’s our job to make sure they have the opportunity.

Pro 20:29 We admire the strength of youth and respect the gray hair of age.

A Second Adulthood

We are all on a journey of aging. We can do all the cosmetic work we want on our bodies. We can eat right, sleep right, and exercise right. We can have the right ancestors and the right genes. Still we get older and things begin to fall apart or slow down or quit. This can be the beginning of the end or a warning we have a limited time to start again. Starting again is an option we need to consider more often.

Too often we see someone slipping into the later years and acting in such a way that reminds us of a child. What do we say or at least think? They are moving into their second childhood. Childish ways to some extent are replacing the more logical actions of a healthy adult. Unfortunately we also associate a second childhood as one of the steps we take as we move toward the end of life itself. That makes it all the more depressing.

What would happen if we focused more upon reshaping those later years before they can turn into a second childhood? What if we took the steps we could to enter again a second adulthood? Instead of seeing that next step as leading unavoidably down the slippery slope to a sense of uselessness, we took a detour around the hill to a point where we could start climbing again. It would not be our age we would be starting again. It would be our dreams and the actions we could take to make those dreams come true.

When Dr. Robert Dale wrote his book, “To Dream Again”, he was addressing the need for churches to look at their place on a life cycle bell curve. Infancy would be at the starting point on the left hand side. The curve would rise through childhood, youth, early adulthood, stable adulthood, declining adulthood, and then down the slope to old age and ultimately death.

Dale proposed the flow of the life of a church did not have to follow such a neat curve. A church could make the intentional decision to detour off the top of the curve, go back to an earlier point, and dream again. I believe a person should be able to do the same thing.

When retirement comes, all too often a person sees the descending slope ahead of them as the inevitable path to death. Death will someday come, of course, but a person can put a few bumps and curves in that slope by daring to dream again.

No, you cannot go back and regain the energy of youth, at least not yet. A person can, however, use the wisdom gained through the extra years of life and apply it to dreams left unfulfilled. A person can dare to dream again, seek out the resources that will allow those dreams to come true, and then apply the rich wisdom and determined passion in bringing those dreams into reality.

What is passed cannot be repeated or undone. That experience can be used to make the time still ahead a period of life when once more dreams are lived out and productivity is realized.

In his own way the Apostle Paul made this vow for his life. He dared to keep dreaming. He said,

Php 3:12-14 “I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself. Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above.

Getting Started on the Bucket List

Not only has AARP (American Association of Retired People) been on my case to join them since I turned fifty, the Medicare Administration has gotten me in their grip, and now I receive the regular reminders I am old enough to draw my full Social Security benefits. I don’t mind the help with medical expenses, but I am not ready to retire and do nothing.

That is not to say I am not ready to leave this full time job and devote myself to other interests of a less frustrating nature. I have that proverbial bucket list containing a long list of goals I want to pursue when I have the time. One of those goals is embodied in this blog, the urge to write. At one time I sought to make this a weekly event. That has retreated into a hopefully once a month event. The writing interest also finds expression on a facebook page, a life log (for my eyes only), and in generating children’s stories and novels.

Beyond that the bucket list contains education in the form of earning another master’s degree, learning Spanish, and getting involved in a local archaeological dig. There are hospital volunteer responsibilities to assume, getting dirty with Habitat for Humanity, and becoming more involved in helping others to live better in this next part of life.

If you are not familiar with the movie, The Bucket List, I encourage you to see it before you reach retirement age. Morgan Freeman, one of my favorite all time actors, and Jack Nicholson are two terminally ill men who decide to live out the dreams on their bucket lists, things to do before they “kick the bucket”. Make up your own bucket list to avoid dropping dead from boredom the day after you retire.

All of this is to say just doing stuff to keep busy is hardly worth the effort. Watching television eighteen hours a day can keep you busy. Doing crossword or word search puzzles eighteen hours a day can keep you busy. Involving yourself in activities that will make you a better person and most of all make the people around you better people, those are activities worth putting on a bucket list.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, I have another motivation. I want to make my Lord glad that he choose me to be one of his disciples. It is not the personal credit that is important; rather the knowledge I have pleased the One who has given me so much already.

As the Apostle Paul records in his letter to the church in Colossae:

Col 3:23  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.

If your priority is to please the Lord in your work, then it makes no difference in what stage of life you may be or the difficulty of the task. The important goal is to give God the best you have. This involves not only the effort you are willing to put into the job, but also the attitude with which you do it. The world may see none of what you do or only part of it. The Lord, however, will see all of it, and he deserves your best.

Getting What I Deserve

In recent months a series of various commercials have been aired featuring lawyer representatives discussing the merits of their businesses. Each of them focused on a particular word: Deserve. If you use this law firm, you will get what you deserve. Generally the commercials were describing personal injury cases. They promised these lawyers would give their clients what they deserve.

What do these people deserve who have been injured on the job, on the highway, or just simply on the way through life? The court settlements about which we all hear are financial and in the millions of dollars. Someone is declared negligent and has to pay a huge sum of money because a court has decided the injury could have been avoided if proper care had been shown. No one chose to have the accident. No one wanted to have an accident. Everyone regrets that it happened, but the injured person deserves to have a huge cash settlement anyway.

When do we decide we ought to get what we deserve? Usually we only want what we deserve when we will benefit. We rarely want what we deserve when we were the ones in the wrong. The last thing we want to have happen is get what we deserve when we deserve to suffer a little pain. I don’t want what I deserve when a traffic officer pulls me over for doing ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit. I don’t want what I deserve when I sit on the couch and unconsciously eat an entire half gallon of ice cream.

When it comes to our relationship with God, we never want what we deserve when it comes to his judgment of our sin-filled lives. The Apostle Paul tells us about our unrighteous condition before God.

Rom 3:23 “everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.”

Such a condition does not leave us in a good position before a holy and righteous God who will have the final word on our eternal destiny. If we got what we deserved based upon the fact God cannot and will not tolerate sin in his presence, we would have no hope.

Thankfully we serve a merciful God who has decided to spare us.

Rom 5:8 “But God has shown us how much he loves us---it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!

Rom 10:9 “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.”

We don’t get what we deserve in our relationship with God and our destiny with eternity because God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for us.

Do we deserve to be persecuted as Christians? If you are a committed Christian living in a non Christian world, you do. Our Lord and Savior was condemned by the religious and civil authorities of his day. Because he refused to acknowledge their authority to determine man’s relationship with God, he was killed as a criminal against the state. He told his followers they should expect nothing less.

As long as followers of Christ represent a moral code that threatens the power of civil and other religious authorities, they will be persecuted. As long as Christians follow an authority beyond this world that threatens the authorities of this world, they will be persecuted. As long as Christians refuse to compromise with the patterns of this world, they can expect and even deserve to be persecuted by a world that refuses to see its own sinful condition.

Do What You Can

In this election year here in the United States, a commonly heard phrase is “Why should I vote? What difference will my one vote make in a national or even state election?” One vote among one hundred and seventy-five million can seem very small and insignificant indeed.

The Apostle Paul reminds us, however, our greatest obligation is not how we affect national or state affairs, but how we affect the lives of those we see each day.

Rom 12:9-21 Love must be completely sincere. Hate what is evil, hold on to what is good. Love one another warmly as Christians, and be eager to show respect for one another. Work hard and do not be lazy. Serve the Lord with a heart full of devotion. Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times.

       Share your belongings with your needy fellow Christians, and open your homes to strangers. Ask God to bless those who persecute you---yes, ask him to bless, not to curse. Be happy with those who are happy, weep with those who weep. Have the same concern for everyone. Do not be proud, but accept humble duties. Do not think of yourselves as wise.

      

       If someone has done you wrong, do not repay him with a wrong. Try to do what everyone considers to be good. Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody. Never take revenge, my friends, but instead let God's anger do it. For the scripture says, "I will take revenge, I will pay back, says the Lord."

       Instead, as the scripture says: "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them a drink; for by doing this you will make them burn with shame." Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good.

The older I get the more importance this passage carries for me. It does not focus upon a Christian’s responsibility to change the world. Its entire focus is upon the necessity of individuals to impact in a positive way the small circle in which they live, move, and relate. Paul makes no argument for marching on the national capital. Rather he emphasizes the importance of relating to our next door neighbor with a spirit of love and redemption.

Early in my ministry I began to use this passage in pre-marital counseling. The text was written by an individual to one congregation or more, perhaps to be read by many. Yet how many relationships between husbands and wives, between neighbors, as well as between individual church members would be enriched by living out these words of encouragement.

I called them “divine nuggets of wisdom”. Each phrase could be taken as an individual statement of counsel. Each phrase touches upon an area of life important in human relationships. Of course our nation and world would be a much happier and fulfilling arena of life if, for instance, each of us sought to “do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody.” Until that day comes each of us in our own small world of relationships should seek to do the same.

We must not wait until dictators, emperors, kings, and presidents start to act live civilized human beings who do not live by the laws of fang and claw. Our actions may not change the greater world, but in our own realm of relationships, when we live by the laws of love and redemption, we can make a difference in the lives of those we touch each day.

It is not a trite phrase to believe in the strength of goodness. A not so old proverb says, “In the long run, good will always beat evil because good is better.” If we believe good is grounded in the very nature of divine love that demands obedience and simultaneously provides the grace to make that obedience possible and then the forgiveness when obedience fails, then we will be that influence that looks so small to the world but so big to those closest to us.