(upbeat music) So how do we continue on when this life feels pointless? Like when we are treading water and it just feels like we're passing time until this life is over. It's a raw and honest question from Fred, an older gentleman who does not give us his exact age, but Fred wrote us to say this, "Pastor John, I avoid the thought "because I don't want to go down this path, "but deep within me I long for death "because it will release me from what I consider "so far to be a pretty joyless life.

"The joyful moments of relationship with God "seem to be few and far between now, "and it just seems like my life "is really just a matter of passing time "until Jesus either returns or calls me home. "What advice can you give me? "I feel really exhausted." The first thing I want to say to Fred is that growing weary with this world in old age is normal and good.

It's normal because our energy is being depleted by age, and it's good because in this broken world, Christians are not really at home. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we are designed as new creatures in Christ for a new heaven and a new earth with glorified bodies, so don't be too hard on yourself for feeling weariness with this old, worn-out, dying, corrupt world.

You were made for something better, and it is coming. But what is sinful is letting our weariness become cynical or hopeless or joyless or meaningless, so let me try to help Fred by just mentioning five or six things that might be an encouragement and a guidance. First, keep the promises of God before your mind day and night.

Some of them are wonderfully designed for old people like us. Here's what Isaiah 46.3 says. "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, "all the remnant of the house of Israel "who have been born by me from before your birth, "carried from the womb, "even to your old age I am he, "and to gray hairs I will carry you.

"I have made and I will bear, "I will carry and will save." In other words, the greatness of our God is not that he demands us to carry him like the Babylonian gods on carts, but that he shows his strength in carrying us, and the weaker we get, the more precious that promise is.

So keep the promises of God before your mind, especially the ones designed for us. Number two, never forget that you are not still here by accident. God gave you life and God will take your life. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord, Job chapter one.

And God does nothing randomly or whimsically. He has gloriously wise reasons for everything he does, even if we can't see them. So you are still on this earth for a divine reason. Your life is not meaningless. You are not here by accident. God is sovereign. If he has you still here, he has good reasons.

Bank on it, trust him. Three, don't medicate your sadness and weariness with television. There are some things, I don't doubt, that may provide innocent and wholesome recreation for your mind, but they are so few, and so far between. Most television and most advertisements on television drag your soul away from Christ.

They don't promote holiness and purity and heavenly mindedness and nobility of soul. They make you feel small and stupid and silly and childish. So don't join the millions of old people who simply vegetate in front of animated worldliness. Number four, if you can read, read the Bible and read good books about God and his world.

If you can't read, get somebody to help you get set up with audio books and listen to the Bible and listen to important books, great books, insightful books, interesting books. God has so much to teach us in our old age, and we never lose our need of being reminded of great things that we once knew and have now forgotten.

He has given us an utterly fascinating world to understand and enjoy. So find a way to keep growing in your knowledge and in grace. Fifth, be among God's people at church and ask the leaders of your church how you can serve given your limitations. God created us, all of us, to be useful.

And one of the greatest frustrations of growing old is the sense of uselessness. But if you have any strength or any mobility left, you can find some way to serve. And that's the last thing. Number six is kind of a sub point, I suppose, of number five. Find someone you can care for, give yourself to.

And that care may be as simple as reading to them or taking them for a walk or giving them a shoulder rub or showing an interest in their life. There are always people who have needs. And until we're paralyzed, in bed, unable to move, we probably can make some small contribution to someone else's life.

You were made for that, Fred. You were made to love and serve. So seek it out. This is the path of joy because Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." And Fred, I don't know if you like poetry, but I'm gonna end with a poem.

It's one of my favorites. It's written by John Milton who wrote "Paradise Lost." It's called "On His Blindness." He went blind at age 46. That's when it finished anyway. He couldn't see anything after age 46. He lived another 20 years till 1674, totally blind. And this poem is about his struggle with feeling useless and yet coming to a very crucial insight.

So, "When I consider how my light is spent ere half my days in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent to serve there with my maker and present my true account lest he returning chide.

Doth God exact day labor light denied, I fondly ask? But patience, to prevent that murmur soon replies, God doth not need either man's work or his own gifts. Who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state is kingly, thousands at his bidding speed and post or land and ocean without rest.

They also serve who only stand and wait." Hmm, profound. Yeah, imagine your trade being in writing and reading like Milton and then facing blindness by age 46. I mean, talk about a midlife crisis and here he is standing ready to serve God. So in this context, I mean, the king and his warriors, Milton sees himself as willing to act, but as a soldier, he is often assigned with the duty of watching and waiting.

Wow, that is worth listening to over and over a few times for it to sink in. Thank you, Pastor John, for bringing this poem into the discussion. And Fred, thank you for the question. I should point out here that Pastor John has a little book on this theme entitled, "Rethinking Retirement, Finishing Life for the Glory of Christ." You can download the whole thing free right now at desiringgod.org/books.

Again, the title is "Rethinking Retirement." You can get it right now from the site and we appreciate you listening to the podcast. We publish three times a week and you can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive and even reach us by email with a difficulty you might be facing in life, even with challenges of finding purpose in this life.

You can do all of that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, we're gonna close the week hearing from a female listener who finds herself stuck in a deep season of grief and sorrow that will not pass. So how can she honor God inside this unalleviated pain? That's on Friday.

I'm your host Tony Reinke and we'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)