The Difference

I just recently found myself dealing with a period of depression. Oh, it doesn’t grip me like it does a lot of people.  I have learned to see it coming. Can’t say I always react the way I should.  It is usually related to a period of illness, too, and this time was no exception.  I had come down with a serious sinus infection.  Still don’t know which comes first – the illness or the depression – but I am convinced they are related.  I am also convinced that the depression comes as a natural symptom of where I am in life right now.  Middle age.  Too old to have the ideological view of a youngster and too young to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.  Since my wife and I started our family so late in life, we struggle just to keep up with the energy level required to nurture, encourage, discipline, teach, and have fun with three children.  Some people we know deal with the same issues.  Others seem to have it handled so well.  I wasn’t handling it well in this particular period of my life.  So, I let depression creep in.  I have a friend who usually sees it in me before I do.  That was the case again.  As a middle-aged man, I have only a few outlets when this type of thing hits and I usually choose to throw myself into my work. I start working way too many hours for any healthy person.  Bet my boss doesn’t mind, but I oversee several people and I think I drive them even harder simply because I am fighting depression. It usually ends up backfiring on me and people revolt, so I trust my friend’s advice and try to keep a balance.

I have found that one aspect of depression is taking things for granted.  I forget all the things I am grateful for.  So, to fight the depression, I force myself to take time away and look at what I have.  It is so easy to forget.  For example, how often do I not really realize the price Jesus paid for me on the cross?  When I think about it, I can get excited and it makes me want to worship – at least for a little while.  Doesn’t seem to matter where I am. I have learned to be able to worship anywhere and any time.  Sometimes I flat out don’t have a choice.  Last week I found myself in a hotel away from home and alone.  I walked outside just to get some fresh air and my heart raced with the desire to worship.  It was raining, so there I was walking in the rain with an umbrella over my head singing worship songs at the top of my lungs just shy of midnight.  Why doesn’t that feeling of joy and thankfulness remain?  It comes on strong and stays for only a moment.  Then depression creeps back in. So, I ponder the riches of my life.

We have so many things in our life, but none of them really makes us happy.  There is happiness associated with things, no doubt.  I am happy I have a car that doesn’t break down.  That makes my commute to work a lot less stressful.  I am happy we own a store that reaches into the community and provides quality Christian products as well as a paycheck to six other people. But those same things bring stress into our lives as well.  Every month I have to make a car payment and every week we have to make payroll.  Those things bring stress and not happiness.  I guess almost anything that brings happiness has some sort of stress related to it.  Such is the place in life a middle-aged man sits.  As a youngster, stress was seldom a factor.  I could overcome anything.  As a middle-aged man, I still think I can overcome anything, but wisdom tells me that some things aren’t worth the struggle or I flat out don’t have the time.  So, my sites get adjusted a little and I don’t necessarily like it.

The real riches in life have stress related to them, too.  I have a wonderful marriage.  We love each other so much.  Why should I be surprised when stress arises in our marriage?  Don’t get me wrong.  One of the reasons our marriage is so good is that we both support each other and encourage each other as we deal with the stress of life.  Any of you who have children will agree that they are not without stress either. 

I shake my head and ponder what life is if not one set of stressful situations after another.  Am I making a difference in the life of somebody?  Does my life count for something?  Do the things I do have redeeming qualities that will make them last more than a generation?  For the most part, I am simply going through the motions getting through life.  For the most part, my life only impacts a few individuals in a few ways.  For the most part, days come and days go without any major impact on the world in which I walk.  Life, simply, goes on.

How is it that we are supposed to be Christ-like yet we barely make it through the day?  How is it that if we are suppose to be salt in the earth, we barely impact the family we have?  How is it that we seldom see the fruits of our labor?  I mean Jesus saw the fruits of his labor.  He healed the sick and they walked away gladly.  He stood up in the boat and told the wind and waves to be calm and they did.  Why can’t I see the immediate results of my walk, too?  Is it any surprise to anyone that middle-aged men throw themselves into their jobs?  At least there, we can see tangible evidence of the difference we make.   Still, as I struggle from day to day, I wonder if my contributions really make any difference at all.

I think about Peter.  Yes, there is a man who I can understand.  Peter.  So fervently dedicated to following Christ that he takes up a sword for battle when they come to take Jesus away.  Peter.  So unsure of his mid-life direction that only moments later he denies he even knew the man.  Peter.  Dejected and lost as he watched Joseph and others carry Jesus’ body off to the tomb.  Hadn’t Peter been the one to say they had given up everything to follow Jesus.  Where else would they go?  Peter.  A forced mid-life career change.  Fisherman.  Disciple.  And now back to being a fisherman again.  Oh how I think I can understand the emotions that must have gone through him during those days.  I am sure he relived everything that happened while walking with Jesus, all the victories he had, and all the mistakes he made.  I am sure he beat himself up over the smallest things.  I am sure because I do it myself.  If only I had done this thing or said that thing.  If only…if only.  In John 21 we see Peter, after Jesus died, back out in the Sea fishing again.  Trying to pick up life where he had left it.  Doing the one thing he knew he could do – fish.  All night long he has fished and all night long he has caught nothing.  I know how he felt.  He was even questioning his ability to do the very thing he was trained from birth.  Worked all night and for what?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing!  Same feeling I get when there is so much of the month left at the end of the money.  I work so hard and for what?  I am sure he was upset, tired, and grumpy.  The last thing he wants to see is someone who is cheerful.  As they are getting ready to bring the boat in and forget catching anything until night falls again, they hear a voice from the shore saying to cast their nets on the other side.  I can imagine Peter at first.  Rolls his eyes in the back of his head and thinks “who is this who thinks he knows these waters better than me?”  Yet something inside of him says to try it, so he does.  Well, guess what? The fish were so many that the nets started to break and they had to call for others to help them.

I think it was at that moment (the Bible isn’t clear) that everything clicked with Peter.  He remembered a similar time a few years back when Jesus told them where to cast their nets.  He remembered a time when Jesus told him to go catch a fish and take the coin from the mouth and give it for taxes.  He remembered a time when Jesus fed the thousands with a sack lunch. He remembered the very purpose that God had put him on this earth.  I know how that feels.  You think your heart should be happy, but it isn’t.   Your heart becomes one so humbled that tears come to your eyes.  Look in John 21 and see what Peter did.  He fell to the ground and wept that he should not be in God’s very presence.  Such is the struggle of a mid-life man.  What did Jesus do?  Jesus encouraged him and told Peter that he has a plan for his life like none he had ever imagined.  God telling man to stay focused.  Every now and then God comes to us and reminds us about his plan for us.  It isn’t always easy to swallow, but it is so good to know he cares.

I recently found myself in Berlin on a business trip.  I had never been to the European continent.  Several years back, I had been in the military for many years “fighting” the cold war.  When the wall had come down in Berlin, I felt like I had reached the very goal I had set out to achieve.  What does one do after completing the goal of their life?  What do gold medal winners do when they are too old to compete anymore?  What do astronauts do once they have walked on the moon?  Well, I changed my career and became a businessman helping others aspire to their dreams and goals.  Most days it is not as exciting as fighting the war, but it has its moments.  This particular day I was in a hotel having dinner in what used to be East Berlin.  My heart raced with the thoughts that at one time this was “behind enemy lines”.  These are the very people I was fighting for.  These are the people whose government had oppressed them and who I was working hard to give freedom.  I wondered if they ever knew.  I sat down to dinner with a business acquaintance that lived in Munich.  He had lived in the old West Berlin and had dug tunnels under the wall to help people escape.  We compared notes and talked and talked.  Two middle-aged men talking about “what they had done in the war”.  The young lady serving us wasn’t German.  I asked my dinner partner where she was from.  He said she was Russian.  Many Russians live in the eastern section of Berlin.  She looked to be in her mid-twenties.  My dinner partner and I spent several hours there trading stories and reliving our pasts.  The waitress continued bringing us crackers, cheese, and water.  Then she came up to my German partner and asked him a few questions.  I was silent, unable to understand their conversation.  After they were done I asked what she had said.

She had asked him if I was an American.  Can’t you tell, he replied.  Well, of course she could.  She asked if I was a military person and he told her no longer, but that I was one of the Americans who helped bring the wall down.  She then told him that we would have to pay for our food, but she would not accept any tip.  She told him to tell me that she would serve me freely because I had paid the price for her freedom when I didn’t even know her.  There was no way she would ever accept any tip from me.  She would find it an insult for me to tip her.  She has freedom now and so will her children because of what I had done.

After my dinner partner told me this we sat in silence for what seemed like an hour.  Just like Peter, my heart was humbled.  Just like Peter, I knew it wasn’t my actions that had caused the victory.  Just like Peter, I had nobody to give credit to except God.  Made me wonder. If she is willing to serve me because of the minor price I had paid several years ago, how much more should I be willing to serve Christ for the major price he paid many years ago.  I seldom think about it in those terms. Surely she thinks about her freedom and those thoughts cause her to carry out actions.  Shouldn’t my life be the same?

The waitress told my dinner partner something that really struck my heart.  She told him to tell me that “joy comes in the morning”. She told him I would understand what that means.  He didn’t.  He repeated it to me and asked me if I understood.  I said yes I did and I would explain it someday when he was ready to understand.  Surely the Lord does renew the strength of a middle-aged man just trying to walk through history.  Surely, that has made all the difference.

The Difference.  ã Nov 2003 Larry Reagan