“As I approach the prime of my life, I find I have the time of my life,” so says Robert Goulet.
I think that’s a healthy outlook. The only difficulty is in determining just when the prime of life will begin. Some consider the prime of life to be the period of greatest strength, health or beauty. Others define it as the time of maximum productivity or the period of the greatest accumulation of wealth. Yet another view is that the ‘golden years’ of retirement qualify as the prime years of a person’s life.
For those with young families, the energy God provides for us to deal with cars, houses, children, school and work makes us feel that we’re in the prime of productive life. For folks a tad older with children in college, in the military or in other pursuits, the excitement of their accomplishments provides the sense that this is our prime. When we reach retirement, or at least the age bracket where retirement is an option, we begin to have the time to do more of God’s work and more of our own work as opposed to someone else’s go-do’s. Here we get the impression that surely this is the prime of life. Some even refer to us as ‘prime timers’.
As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ I think we can take the view that any period of life we are approaching can be considered prime. We may not be approaching a time of peak physical strength or maximum financial gain. But in believing that God has our best interest in mind and that He is going to perform ever-increasing good work in our lives, we can and should anticipate all future periods of life to be times of great blessing. Those times will, without doubt, contain periods of trouble, but God has promised to sustain us through those times and bring about victory.
If we adopt the view described herein, we can move forward in 2010 as a year of opportunity. It’s up to us to trust God for His blessing and to adopt an optimistic view of the future. God will bless according to His promise, and we can have the time of our life.