We typically recognize midlife crises as a phenomenon which primarily affects men. However, Peter Greer believes that something everyone faces at some point towards the middle of their lives; Christians are no exception.
Peter has written , and says as we try to get past our own midlife crises, we can learn a lot about Solomon from the book of Ecclesiastes:
“It’s really interesting, isn’t it? If the most successful, if the wealthiest person, if someone who had achieved everything that this world says is going to bring meaning and satisfaction, if we could sit down with someone who had achieved all of that. And that is this crazy book in the Bible, Ecclesiastes, that we get to sit down with. And we get to learn from someone who had accomplished everything and more that we could dream of. We get to learn from that person’s perspective, ‘what’s the point of it all?'”
Greer bases much of his book around Ecclesiastes, and says that Solomon’s regrets as looks back over his life provide believers nowadays an incredible opportunity to realize that they were meant for something more than all the trappings the world offers:
“[Solomon] went after pleasure, and he went after it hard, and he ended up in that place of despair. So maybe the gift of this time in life, maybe the gift of whatever you want to define midlife as, is if you’ve caught some of the things you’ve been chasing, and they really didn’t do what you thought they were going to do, maybe you can let go as that as the place of that pursuit as what is going to bring ultimate meaning and satisfaction into your life.”
Greer says midlife crises are usually preceded by an individual’s first true realization his own mortality. So, he says, if nothing else — make sure you cultivate godly, solid relationships and friendships:
“Thinking about the end of life, it’s not the Facebook friends that are going to be there; it’s your real friends that you’ve invested in real life on life together with them that are going to be there with you.”
