Strategies for When Life Seems Aimless

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Today's question is about waiting

00:00:07.840 | when life seems to be aimless and going nowhere,

00:00:11.720 | specifically when it comes to a career

00:00:14.380 | and not finding energy or excitement in that career.

00:00:17.800 | But the implications cover really any kind of waiting.

00:00:20.920 | This specific question comes to us from Daniel

00:00:24.060 | who asks this, "Dear Pastor John,

00:00:26.320 | "I'm a recent college graduate and I feel directionless

00:00:29.560 | "as I try to figure out what this time of my life

00:00:32.160 | "is supposed to be about and what God has planned for me.

00:00:35.920 | "In this transition from college into the working force,

00:00:38.560 | "I feel like I've lost my energy,

00:00:40.960 | "my purpose, and my direction.

00:00:43.540 | "I know that all that I do is for God's glory

00:00:45.920 | "and I know that my joy is supposed to be rooted in Christ

00:00:48.480 | "and not in my circumstances.

00:00:51.060 | "But my question is, how should Christians like me

00:00:53.520 | "handle this so-called quarter life crisis?"

00:00:59.520 | - Well, the first thing to say

00:01:01.440 | is that this season will pass.

00:01:06.280 | But God intends for Daniel to engage

00:01:11.280 | in the kind of spiritual warfare

00:01:13.900 | that God will use to make it pass.

00:01:16.640 | That's the place to start, I think.

00:01:18.440 | And the first strategy in that warfare, that engagement,

00:01:23.440 | it seems to me Daniel has already pursued,

00:01:27.980 | namely the recognition that this condition

00:01:32.080 | of his mind and soul is a kind of crisis

00:01:36.040 | and needs to be, as he says, handled.

00:01:39.880 | How can I handle this?

00:01:42.720 | One way to describe the crisis

00:01:45.680 | would be that it's perhaps like the well-known

00:01:50.520 | ancient spiritual condition called acedia, A-C-E-D-I-A.

00:01:56.840 | And that comes from the Greek word for neglect.

00:02:01.100 | But the term acedia came to refer,

00:02:04.520 | to use the words of one resource I read,

00:02:08.320 | to a state of listlessness or torpor,

00:02:13.020 | of not caring or not being concerned

00:02:16.420 | with one's position or condition in the world.

00:02:19.980 | And they said it can lead to a state

00:02:22.340 | of being unable to perform one's duties in life.

00:02:25.780 | Its spiritual overtones make it related to,

00:02:29.420 | but arguably distinct from, depression.

00:02:32.880 | So this is like acedia,

00:02:36.040 | it sounds like what we're dealing with here.

00:02:39.440 | So the first strategy is to identify the crisis,

00:02:42.820 | look it full in the face, make no denials,

00:02:45.200 | identify its nature, and make plans for war.

00:02:49.720 | Second strategy is to set one's face.

00:02:53.200 | Daniel should set his face for a patient,

00:02:57.580 | God-centered waiting upon the Lord.

00:03:01.160 | Not that the waiting will be inactive,

00:03:05.800 | but rather it will be a recognition

00:03:08.420 | that the victory may take time,

00:03:10.640 | and that in the meanwhile,

00:03:12.880 | we will not give in to despair.

00:03:17.360 | So we go to Psalm 40,

00:03:18.920 | and we put the words of David on our tongue,

00:03:21.240 | I waited patiently for the Lord.

00:03:24.920 | He inclined to me, heard my cry.

00:03:27.320 | He drew me up from the pit of destruction

00:03:30.180 | out of the miry bog.

00:03:31.300 | He set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

00:03:34.640 | He put a new song in my mouth,

00:03:36.760 | a song of praise to our God.

00:03:38.440 | Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

00:03:42.660 | So we take heart that however long

00:03:45.760 | the waiting might have to be,

00:03:47.880 | David doesn't say, however long we may have to be

00:03:50.920 | in the pit or in the miry bog of acedia,

00:03:55.400 | listlessness, directionlessness,

00:03:58.200 | we will not despair,

00:04:00.240 | but we'll look expectantly to God to act in his time.

00:04:04.600 | That's strategy number two.

00:04:07.120 | Number three, the third strategy,

00:04:11.020 | realize that genuine Christians

00:04:14.400 | often are marked by this kind of malaise.

00:04:18.640 | And you see it, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 5.14.

00:04:22.620 | We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle.

00:04:28.440 | That's an interesting word there, atactus.

00:04:30.360 | It's kind of the chaotic, the disordered,

00:04:34.360 | it feels like everything's out of whack.

00:04:36.920 | Encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak,

00:04:40.180 | be patient with them all.

00:04:41.360 | So idle, faint-hearted, weak,

00:04:45.960 | that's not unlike what Daniel describes

00:04:48.720 | he's feeling these days.

00:04:50.620 | And Paul recognizes those folks are in the church.

00:04:54.240 | They need to be cared for.

00:04:55.840 | That's real Christian experience

00:04:58.960 | and real Christian warfare.

00:05:01.000 | And the fourth strategy is to put the word of God

00:05:04.600 | over against the particular losses that you are feeling.

00:05:10.460 | And Daniel said, I feel like I've lost my energy,

00:05:14.720 | purpose and direction.

00:05:17.360 | Let me take those one at a time.

00:05:18.600 | Just put a word of God over against each one.

00:05:21.620 | The psalmist says, let's take energy.

00:05:24.540 | The psalmist says, the Lord is my strength and my shield.

00:05:28.920 | In him, my heart trusts and I am helped.

00:05:32.360 | So the Lord himself is our strength.

00:05:36.040 | And the psalmist says that we experience that strength

00:05:39.480 | by trusting in him.

00:05:42.080 | And to be more specific, Nehemiah says,

00:05:45.280 | the joy of the Lord is your strength.

00:05:49.360 | So pursue the joy of the Lord

00:05:52.400 | and you will be pursuing your strength.

00:05:56.560 | There is a kind of paradox here.

00:06:00.440 | When you feel energy, it's you who feel the energy.

00:06:05.400 | When you get up and act,

00:06:07.440 | it's you who are getting out of bed and acting.

00:06:10.760 | And yet the Bible says, the Lord is your strength.

00:06:14.880 | Sometimes you hear people say,

00:06:17.280 | God helps those who help themselves.

00:06:20.080 | Well, that's a kind of secular effort

00:06:25.080 | to express a biblical truth

00:06:27.440 | that secular people cannot understand

00:06:30.400 | and therefore they can't say it right.

00:06:32.960 | What that is trying to say biblically is,

00:06:37.000 | God helps the weak and paralyzed and dead

00:06:42.000 | to help themselves so that in all our so-called self-help,

00:06:47.520 | God will get the glory

00:06:48.880 | because all our self-help turned out to be God help.

00:06:51.760 | That's what they're trying to say.

00:06:53.320 | That's the biblical truth.

00:06:54.600 | And here's the way Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, 10.

00:06:58.200 | By the grace of God, I am what I am

00:07:00.400 | and his grace toward me is not in vain.

00:07:03.280 | But on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them,

00:07:07.480 | though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

00:07:12.000 | So Daniel, by all means, pursue your restored energy.

00:07:17.000 | Seek it in the Lord.

00:07:20.040 | Seek it in the joy of the Lord.

00:07:22.480 | And when you have sought it and trusted him for it,

00:07:26.880 | get out of bed and do the next thing that needs to be done.

00:07:32.280 | And then over against the sense of loss of direction,

00:07:36.760 | I would put 2 Thessalonians 3, 5,

00:07:39.320 | "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God

00:07:44.120 | and the steadfastness of Christ."

00:07:46.160 | And what that text shows is that the Lord himself

00:07:51.160 | is the great heart director.

00:07:54.280 | When we need direction,

00:07:56.120 | we plead for our hearts to experience God's direction.

00:08:01.240 | It's precisely the heart that Daniel needs direction for,

00:08:06.040 | not just his head, not just his body.

00:08:08.800 | The heart is the great life director

00:08:12.600 | and behind the heart is the Lord.

00:08:14.640 | And so pray that God would direct the heart

00:08:18.440 | first to the love of God

00:08:19.880 | and then to the steadfastness of Christ.

00:08:22.080 | And then in that love and in that steadfastness

00:08:26.520 | to the clarity you need for your life's work.

00:08:30.600 | And then lastly, Daniel says,

00:08:33.000 | he feels like he's lost purpose.

00:08:36.560 | And over against that, I want to put 1 Peter 2, 9,

00:08:40.840 | "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,

00:08:45.480 | a people for his own possession,

00:08:48.120 | that," and that's the purpose statement,

00:08:50.280 | "that you may proclaim the excellencies of him

00:08:54.440 | who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

00:08:57.120 | Whatever else God has for you in life,

00:09:01.800 | this is crystal clear.

00:09:03.520 | You exist to make the excellencies of God known,

00:09:08.520 | especially the excellencies by which he calls people

00:09:12.680 | from darkness to light.

00:09:15.440 | And it is a marvelous light, Daniel.

00:09:17.760 | As much listlessness as you may feel just now,

00:09:21.440 | you live in marvelous light and it's your purpose.

00:09:26.920 | God appointed purpose to see it, to savor it,

00:09:30.080 | and to make it known.

00:09:31.920 | Put one more specific text

00:09:35.080 | over against that loss of purpose.

00:09:37.720 | 1 Peter 4, 10, "As each has received a gift,

00:09:41.960 | use it to serve one another as good stewards

00:09:44.500 | of God's varied grace."

00:09:46.220 | You, Daniel, like every Christian, have gifts from God.

00:09:50.720 | These gifts are peculiar to you,

00:09:54.060 | peculiar means by which only you

00:09:57.020 | can steward God's particular grace to you.

00:10:00.700 | Your purpose in life is to use those gifts

00:10:03.620 | to steward that grace for the glory of God.

00:10:08.260 | So let me end with just this encouragement

00:10:10.880 | from Lamentations 3.

00:10:13.300 | Jeremiah was very low, as he wrote this,

00:10:16.460 | in his sense of helplessness

00:10:18.380 | as his beloved Jerusalem was being devastated.

00:10:21.420 | And he cries out, "My soul continually remembers it

00:10:25.460 | and is bowed down within me."

00:10:27.860 | And then he does battle with this crisis that he's in,

00:10:31.700 | and he says, "But this I call to mind."

00:10:36.460 | There you go, Daniel, that's what you do.

00:10:38.220 | This you call to mind.

00:10:39.780 | "And therefore I have hope.

00:10:42.720 | The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

00:10:45.140 | His mercies never come to an end.

00:10:46.820 | They are new every morning.

00:10:48.360 | Great is your faithfulness.

00:10:50.040 | The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

00:10:53.840 | Therefore I will hope in him."

00:10:57.420 | So call God's promises to mind, Daniel.

00:11:00.020 | Hope in him and move.

00:11:03.220 | God will, he will, as you move in his strength,

00:11:07.220 | he will restore the joyful sense of energy

00:11:10.580 | and direction and purpose.

00:11:13.000 | Amen, excellent words for Daniel

00:11:16.260 | and for anyone who faces this season

00:11:18.580 | of aimlessness in life.

00:11:20.540 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:21.740 | And these are the types of life questions

00:11:24.020 | that we address here on the podcast.

00:11:26.420 | And for more information about what we do

00:11:28.460 | or to search our archives of questions

00:11:31.180 | or to send us a concise question of your own

00:11:33.620 | or download the apps for your mobile devices,

00:11:36.700 | go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:11:41.700 | Well, I wanna stay on this topic of jobs and career

00:11:46.020 | for next time because good jobs can be very scarce.

00:11:50.020 | So will God call us to work that we will not enjoy?

00:11:53.840 | How do we handle the calling question

00:11:55.400 | when it comes to work that seems unenjoyable?

00:11:58.140 | That's the question tomorrow.

00:12:00.380 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:12:01.300 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:12:03.740 | with John Piper.

00:12:04.780 | (upbeat music)

00:12:07.360 | (upbeat music)

00:12:09.940 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Strategies for When Life Seems Aimless

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