A Lesson to learn and share with younger generations
The “decades of life” is a lesson I wish I had learned as a young person. Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (NIV).
If you’ve been a part of our Intentional Living family, most likely you’ve heard me talk about how we have roughly 27,000 days on the planet, if we live to be 75 or so. I recently came across a calendar with the weeks of your life. Every dot on this calendar represents one week of life, from the very first week of your life to the end of the eighty-eighth year of life.
I decided to fill in my own days and see how many weeks of life I’ve lived. It was a spiritual experience. I thought it would take me half an hour, but I spent about an hour and a half doing it. At first, I tried to see how fast I could do it, but then I slowed down and started to think about the years:
- What was going on in my life when I was seventeen?
- … When I was thirty-three?
- … And when I was forty-two?
As parent or grandparent, you have a passion of concern for the generation coming behind you. If we can help equip parents and grandparents to teach their children and grandchildren what I’m sharing with you today, together we can not only help them make a decision for Christ but also to live like Christ. The evidence is not only that are they Christians, but that they’re also choosing to be intentional in how they live.
We become the accumulation of the time that we spend on the planet. I thought, how many of those weeks did I waste? How many of those weeks did I not use wisely? They’re gone.
None of us know how many weeks remain. Tonight, could be the last night on the chart. We have no guarantee of 88 years. We must aspire to live every day intentionally for Christ.
Your greatest legacy is what you leave in your children, not what you leave for your children.
I hope you will take this information and share it with your kids and your grandkids. Just sit down and talk about what the decades of life are going to look like for them.
4 Statements to Consider
As we get into examining each decade I’ll share with you, let me just mention four statements to think about.
1. Your journey is unique to you in many ways.
2. You can’t redo a decade.
3. You make decisions, but God determines the results.
4. You can help the willing learners coming behind you by sharing your journey.
I used the word willing because not all the learners coming behind us are willing to learn from those of us who have gone ahead. In our culture we disrespect wisdom and years. Age is highly respected, and wisdom is honored in many other cultures across the globe. But when you get much beyond 40 or 50 years old in our culture, it’s easy to become irrelevant in the minds of younger people and yet there’s wisdom to be learned.
Here’s an image of the matrix I am using as we move through the decades.
I share these with you to think about while talking to your young people, to help them understand what they’re facing in the decade to come in their lives.
Decade #1 – zero to 10 years old
Research shows the first decade is one of the most important in all of life. If you look at what we learn from zero to ten, those first four or five years are critical. Children learn how to stand, to walk, to speak and so many other things. This first decade is spent relating to the family God chose to drop us into for whatever reason.
The big challenge we face in this first decade of life is – Can I trust these people? No one thinks that at five years old, but we all experience it.
A big question we ask in the first ten years is Do I belong? Kids misbehave primarily during this period of life and into the next decade as well, because they’re ultimately trying to belong, to fit in and to connect.
One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids and grandkids is lots of security. If you experienced a lot of security as a child, you know it made a difference in your life. And if you didn’t, you know it made a difference in your life, too.
Life is cumulative. Talking about these decades of life can help people who didn’t grow up in a secure environment in the first 10 years of life, to understand how that affects them today.
Decade #2 – 10 to 19 years old
This takes you from pre-teen right through the teenage years. Relationships move from just you and your family to you and your friends. Your kids and grandkids start to connect with friends. They’re going to school, having parties, learning to drive. And suddenly, the family doesn’t have quite the same impact in their lives as the friends do. And now with social media, it’s a much bigger deal than it used to be.
The real challenge in this decade is my identity?
Our culture is trying to help kids have an identity choice that certainly isn’t godly. This is a critical time. We work on our identity all throughout our lives, but from 10 to 20 in particular, the questions asked many times are –
- Who Am I?
- Why am I here?
- What does God have for me?
It’s critical to help your kids come to know Christ and then grow in Him during these years. When I hear parents say, “I’ll let them make their decisions later,” that is foolish. This is a time when you really need to be instilling into the life of your young person, the truth of Who God is and what He means to their life.
Sharing your own stories of what God has done in your life helps them to experience Christ.
Decade #3 – 20s
If I could go back and redo two decades, my 20s would be one of them. In your 20s, it’s you and the world. The 20s are a time of independence. You ask, “Can I make it on my own?”
As parents you shove your twentysomethings out of the nest a little bit. As parents and grandparents working with our 20-year-olds, we can help them take some decent risks in life.
You’re going to make mistakes. So, make them in your 20s.
Fail early; fail fast; pick yourself back up and keep going.
If God impresses something onto your heart, this is the decade to do it – education, the experiences, the things you feel God is really leading you to do.
I wish I’d taken greater risks in my 20s. I wish I had experienced certain things or done them in a positive way, but I encountered fear. I’m not a giant risk taker; I’m not wired that way. Some people are.
If you have a 20-year-old who’s a giant risk taker, I wouldn’t teach him this particular point. You might want to throttle that back a little bit and add some other descriptive words like safe, risk and careful. But for those in your 20s who want to stay in a bubble, maybe because you you’ve been hurt, this is a time to really branch out and learn.
Decade 4 – the 30s
In the first thirty years of life, you have a learning curve. You’re gaining knowledge about the world, God, other people and yourself. You are discovering what works and doesn’t work. By the end of the 20s, it’s time to grow up.
The 30s are an interesting decade about you and your big decisions. It’s a decade for new starts.
Many of you probably made some decisions in your 30s. Maybe you decided things should look a little different.
The 30s are a time to ask, “What’s next?”
I chose to go a different direction. I went back to school at 33 years old to get my graduate degree and then my doctorate. I wrote my first book and spent time thinking about what we were doing as a ministry.
It’s so critical to teach our 30-somethings to really grow in their confidence in Christ.
Decade 5 – the 40s
The 40s represent the most difficult decade of life psychologically because you’re now in midlife. It’s kind of in the middle of this chart.
Your 40s is a time generally all on you – you’re raising kids. Maybe you’re moving into the teen years with them. We see the midlife crisis, and if you’re going to start questioning, you’ll ask, “Have I accomplished what I set out to do?
In this decade, you’re collecting stuff and you really need to be clear about your priorities. It’s easy to get out of balance with priorities. Life is cumulative. If you didn’t struggle in your 30s and didn’t make some decisions, the 40s might even be tougher for you, unless you say, “God, I need your help.”
Decade 6 – the 50s
The 50s is you and the empty nest. The 50s is the generational squeeze. You’ve got your young people, the people you’re raising, and they’re moving out. They’re getting married. They’re setting up their own homes and their own lives. You probably have aging parents and their issues and you’re in the middle.
According to research the 50s are the best decade of life because you still feel relatively healthy, and strong, and yet you have the stresses going on between these generational situations. The question is, “How do I manage it?”
So, if you’re in your 50s, I’d encouraged you to ask: “What is your life going to be like when you get into your 60s.” Spend time, not only focusing on your responsibilities, but also looking at your life, where you are financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually and in your relationships?
Decade 7 – the 60s
The big question that we see according to research in the 60s is “Have I planned well enough? And it’s not only financially, but have you planned enough in all the areas of your life?
People in their 60s need to stay engaged. It’s easy when retirement time comes to think you’ve done all you need to do. But Donna and I walk our neighborhood every morning and evening. It’s an older neighborhood. We have people in our neighborhood who have been successful in their lives.
They retired early, and they’re miserable. We talked to them and there’s no joy. Some of them have gone back to work. I think it’s a mistake to just sit and focus on yourself. I see people do that, and they die.
Decade 8 – the 70s
The 70s can bring declining strength. I’m just starting this journey in the 70s. Donna is not there yet. I still have a long way to go if God allows me to live. You start thinking about what remains unfinished – relationships, paperwork, a messy garage or whatever it is. The 70s is a time where we need to be positive and to stay active because there’s a change in strength.
You don’t have as much strength as you used to have, and it’s just part of life. You realize things are different, and it’s frustrating because your mind is still thinking 50 or 45, but your body isn’t quite responding.
Decade 9 – 80-plus
Then we have the 80-plus decade. You may have dependency issues or some failing health. The question I think we’re asking here is, “Will I lose my independence?
Also, people in this age group may need assisted living or nursing homes and question, “Can I trust God, and can I trust other people?” There’s a great deal of vulnerability in the world we’re living in today. We should have a real heart of concern for these folks over eighty.
We live in a culture today that loves to deny the reality of life. And so, when I look at how many weeks I’ve lived, and how many dots on this page that I have left, that’s reality. I can’t change it. There could be no more dots.
You and I have an opportunity to help parents and grandparents reach the next generation with this kind of message. Some of us need to be sharing what we’ve experienced in life with our kids and grandkids. Tell them, this is what you’re going to face in your 20s, 30s, 40s …. Yes, it’s a different culture and we live in different times, but human beings are human beings, and you need to prepare for the future.
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