As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”[1]

 

THINK OF YOUR LIFE AS THEATRE      
as an ongoing collection of dramatic works in which you are playing the leading role.

Your lines are unmemorized, delivered spontaneously with each day’s performance. There are myriad scene and set changes, some played indoors, others outside in bright sunlight or beneath a starry sky. At times the stage is filled with actors coming and going, some with whom you are acquainted, others you are not; some shouting, pushing, shoving, others standing silent in the background, all with greater or lessor parts to play in your life, exciting, mundane, humorous, tragic.

IT IS YOUR STORY

presented in three major acts.

Act One (birth to 30somethings) is a period of exploration in which you prepare and position yourself to understand, enter into, and engage in the community, commerce, and culture that is your new world.

Act Two (30-60somethings) is a season of employment and empowerment during which you build a life out of your unique skills, gifts and callings, thereby breathing fresh ideas, energy and purpose into the community, commerce, and culture of your day.

Act Three (60+somethings) is a full-circle era of listening to the hopes and dreams of the young and of your own as well, interpreting the future with lessons from your past and present, inspiring fresh hope and encouragement in the generations following you as they construct their own stories and seek to transform their own new world.

LIFE AS IT IS MEANT TO BE

Modern culture often focuses on our journey from childhood through midlife (the first two-thirds), while failing to inspire, explore and powerfully engage in the relevant deeper and fuller life yearned for once we reach life’s third age.

Yet no one reads a book or watches a movie or goes to live theatre hoping the best part of the story will happen in the first two acts, and the third will be the least entertaining and inspiring of all. We observe the first acts in anticipation of a climactic, thoughtful, inspiring, happy, stirring, transforming finale!

Less than this in life is like spending a years building a business or professional career, then at its apex neglecting to provide the next generational leaders with what has been earned and learned along the way. If tested values are abandoned, financial investments squandered, what once was will be no more. Surrender to inertia and inattention guarantees a lack of worth and meaningful purpose in the end. Failing in life’s third age is like this.

If you are a pastor or missionary, professional or business leader, a husband, a wife, a parent busy with your own life and those of your young children, faced with the pressures and demands of Acts One and Two, have you thought much about Act 3? Just as in theatre, so to in life—you must. We are all blind beggars … listening … asking … what is happening? What does it all mean? It takes more than golf, travel, and a healthy bank account to bring true meaning and purpose to life in Act 3.

Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.

Think about it.

Life as theater. Life in thirds. Life as it is meant to be.

 

 

 

 

“The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.” ~Proverbs 14:15 (ESV)

[1] Luke 18:35-37