Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. And Pastor John, we have not done an entire episode on the midlife crisis, especially your own experience of a midlife crisis. But you have a story to tell, though it's not something that you have talked about at length. I think there's an old conversation with you and John MacArthur where you talked about it a little bit more length.

Now speak to middle-aged listeners, men who are 40 or who are nearly 40. What did you learn during that dark season of your own life? And what would you say to other men who are facing those midlife years or soon to be in them? Take us into your story and what you learned from it.

I think I was 40 when we were on vacation in California and Ben Patterson, who was at that time the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Irvine, asked me to preach for him and offered me his house for some days of vacation while they were away. And so we took him up on it.

And two things happened, which were remarkable and probably a wake-up call, a warning for me in midlife to hold fast to Jesus. One was that I felt inexplicably depressed while I was there. One morning I was sitting on the stairway to the second level of their house crying. And my wife found me and was startled because that's not typical.

She asked me, "What's wrong?" And I simply said, "I don't have any idea." That's what MacArthur got so surprised by in that conversation that we had. He just shook his head and said, "I've never experienced anything like that." I said, "Well, I wish I hadn't." The other thing was that after I preached at Ben's church, it just so happened that Jim Conway, the author of "Men in Midlife Crisis," which I believe is still in print and useful, came to me and asked me how old I was.

He came up after the service. He said, "How old are you?" I thought, "What is that?" And he had introduced himself, so I suspected it must have something to do with midlife. He said, "How old are you?" I said, "Forty." He smiled and he said, "You got a year and a half." And he meant the average age—I think I've got my details right—the average age for men to pass through midlife crisis is 41 and a half.

At least that's the way I remember it. I had never even thought about the issue of midlife crisis. I tend not to put a lot of stock in generalizations like that, but there is a good bit of evidence, isn't there, that something happens for many men as they move into their 40s, and not all of it is pretty.

I don't remember his exact words, but he summed it up something like this, "Well, John, don't leave your wife, don't leave the ministry, don't buy a motorcycle, and don't get a sailboat, don't throw away everything you've built," which kind of captured some of the stupidity that men at this moment do.

They just throw away some of the most valuable things in their lives and try to make something new out of silliness like that. So that gives you a snapshot of my brief experience with it and with him. And now I've tried to think, "Why is this? Why does this happen to us?" I am certainly no expert, and people ought to read books, not just listen to a podcast if they want to try to figure this out.

So let me tell you what I think, though, trying to analyze myself, look at the world, and maybe wave some warning flags for some guys, like you, maybe. It's about where you are. I suspect that there are physical dimensions to this, like hormonal things, you know, male menopause, whatever you want to call it.

I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I would guess that there are changes happening. But I don't know enough to talk about that, so I'll leave that to the side. I suspect that there are more situational reasons for this. For example, a man may feel like he's peaking out in his career, and that it hasn't turned out to be as great as he had hoped.

And a certain measure of disillusionment is settling in as he ponders another 25 years of doing the same thing. The dreams for what his vocation might become have not proved to be as satisfying as he thought, and it can be really oppressive to think of doing the same old, same old for another half a lifetime.

So I think that's part of it. Here's another part of it. He may look at his body in the mirror, or his wife's body, and realize it's downhill from here on. I mean, we're not getting any prettier or handsomer. He's not going to look any more handsome, any more fit, and she's not either.

In fact, he may have let himself go and become a kind of overweight, bedraggled, average, run-of-the-mill, paunchy man, and feel lousy about it, but physically too tired to do anything about it. And the pressures of his vocational life have caused him to let go his exercise, let go any routine of fitness, and maybe even he's not getting enough sleep because kids and work and stress is who knows what all.

And when you don't get enough sleep, you get discouraged and easily depressed. So a bunch of cluster of things like that. And very possibly, he and his wife have settled into a kind of 20-year-old coexistence with their long-discovered differences that have not been worked out very well and still function like irritants between them.

And the peace and the pleasure that he used to enjoy and hoped would get better have been replaced with a kind of truce with neither he nor her offering affirmation and joyful partnership like they used to, and that dream seems to be drying up from what he had hoped it would be.

And here's one more, and I have the gut feeling that this may be close to the heart of the matter for some guys. I don't know whether it was for me or not, but this feels big. At this point in his life, his children—and of course, I'm just thinking of guys that get children—his children are probably entering their teen years, and they're forcing on him questions of his own moral and spiritual identity as he tries to lead his children into adulthood, and the uncertainties and the questions and the perplexities of raising kids, raising young adults in this world feels like never-ending pressure and confusion for which there are just no simple answers.

And the need to give guidance and provision and example to the children is relentless and never-ending. There are no days off from parenting. And this all feels new because raising teenagers is so different from raising three-year-olds and nine-year-olds. So for all those reasons, Tony, and more, I suspect there is something very real to this issue of men in midlife crisis.

And looking back now from age 71, I am overflowing with thankfulness to the mercy and the power of God to hold onto me during those years. There are some pretty depressing parts of John Piper's journal. I hope the world doesn't ever get to look at them, because they just—I mean, when I look at them, I have to say, "Thank you, Father, if you had not been massively true to your promises to complete the good work that you began, I sure didn't have the fingers to grip this cliff." So my encouragement to men is that you lay hold of Jesus Christ, as Paul says in Philippians 3:12, "Precisely because he has laid hold of you." That you get up in the morning before your children—and I know that's a challenge, they've got to be at school at 730, good night, but I did it for years, and I know it's crucial—get up before your children, go to your private place, get down on your knees before God Almighty and beg Him for strength for another day.

And that He would fulfill His promise never to leave you, never to forsake you, that He would help you and strengthen you and uphold you by His Word. And tell Him, tell Him every morning that He is your only hope as you instruct these children in His Word. And ask your wife if you can get a half day away on a Saturday or a Sunday, and you go away for three or four hours, borrow somebody's house if it's wintertime, go to the park if it's not, take a Bible and a notepad, and you wrestle with God for three hours until you get fresh clarity for why you are on planet Earth.

What is the purpose of your life? Get clarity. And I don't mean mainly which other vocation should I have besides the one I'm in. I mean, that might be part of it, but that's not the issue. The issue is, what about the radical commitments of Acts 20, verse 24?

What about the radical commitment of Philippians 1:20? And Paul gets real clarity, and it's not complex, it's short. You can put it in a sentence for why he exists. To magnify Jesus Christ, whether strong or weak, whether living or dying, to finish our course in faith and love, not turning to the right, not turning to the left, not making shipwreck of our faith or our marriage or our ministry.

And I have no doubt, brothers, I have no doubt that if you will take the time to seek his face and know him and love him, you will mount up with wings like eagles. You will run and not be weary. You will walk and not faint. It's true. I know it's true.

I have tasted it in the impossible moments when you don't think you could do another thing you lay hold on Isaiah 40. I promise you that if you stay faithful to your wife, God will re-enchant your marriage in ways you can't imagine. And the children, they're in his hands.

You are not God. You are his emissary. Tell them. Tell them the truth every day from Scripture. Live it with love and meekness and lowliness and penitence and strength as best you can and put them in the hands of God. God is faithful. That's the bottom line. >>So good and helpful, Pastor John.

Thank you for being willing to share about the season of your life and the lessons that we can take from it. I appreciate it a lot. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast as well. You can stay current with our episodes through your favorite podcast app or through the APJ app for iPhone and Android.

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You'll see the button to subscribe. Punch it and you'll stay up to date. And if you have a question for Pastor John, send it to us through our podcast homepage at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well speaking of the dilemmas of adulthood, how does one climb the corporate ladder while on God-centered mission at work?

That's the question on Wednesday. Very good, very important question. And we'll address it then. Until then, I'm your host Tony Ranke. We'll see you on Wednesday. you