
July 13, 2022
Episode #154
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Making adjustments to our lives, setting new priorities, and purposefully choosing to make our relationship with God the major focus of our existence—these are all matters that we followers of Jesus need to consider. David and Karen Mains offer some very helpful suggestions as to what we can do.
Episode Transcript
David: As an elderly servant of Jesus, I want to make my relationship to him the primary focus of my remaining days. I don’t know how many days I have left but I am in this position where I say “I’m in the process of learning a closeness to the Lord that I’ve never experienced to this degree in my life and that’s very wonderful.” I don’t see it as an obligation. I see it as an incredible privilege.
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David: Karen, it’s Moses who in Psalm 90 writes, “The length of our days is 70 years or 80 if we have the strength.”
Karen: And then Moses adds, “…yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
David: Fly away is interesting. Do you know how old Moses was when he died?
Karen: Well, at the end of Deuteronomy it reads, Moses was 120 years old when he died. Then the verse adds this, yet his eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone. Lovely, isn’t it?
David: It’s pretty good. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they were more than a handful of years. In fact, they surpassed Moses. Abraham was 175 according to the scriptures. Isaac 180 and Jacob 147.
Karen: And as much as I love you, my darling, I don’t think you’re going to match any of their ages, nor am I.
David: Not a problem.
Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.
David: On August 6, Karen, the Lord willing, I will celebrate my 86th birthday. And I have been thinking more about the remaining time I have on this earth being limited and how I want to spend it as far as meaningful as possible.
Karen: It seems to me that you’ve already been making some adjustments, right?
David: Yeah, I’ve been making major adjustments for the last several years. And I’m glad for those. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been good. I was spending far more time alone with the Lord.
Karen: And before that, just for people who don’t know, you had a daily broadcast for 20 years. To that, you added a daily television show.
David: It was crazy. Absolutely crazy.
Karen: And then I don’t remember how many pastors’ conferences, in the hundreds, because we were training pastors in the 50-day adventure. And you had teams of pastors actually who came in to help you create those. And we did those for 20 years. So that’s a lot. And you were traveling and speaking in places.
David: Life seems very slow now, but at the same time…
Karen: Kind of good.
David: The hours go by just about as quickly. I attempted this visit, Karen, to write a sentence for myself.
Karen: Okay.
David: Other people can listen in, but we’ve tried to reduce everything to a sentence. And I just decided I was going to focus inwardly this time. So here it is. As an elderly servant of Jesus, and maybe I should just comment there, the AARP magazine, when they do their surveys, they count you elderly if you’re 85 or older.
Karen: You’re just down the line. Aren’t you?
David: I don’t have biblical references to back it up. As an elderly servant of Jesus, I want to make my relationship to him the primary focus of my remaining days. That’s where I am in my head.
Karen: That’s a good goal honey.
David: I find, Karen, that I have problems that come. And that there are other elements of my life that fight for that same attention. I will confess to several addiction here.
Karen: Okay. Let’s hear it.
David: I’m not on drugs. I don’t have any of those that I have to say. I’m very sorry I have to inform you. But I’m going to go back to the 1970s just as a reference life wise. That was the Watergate time. I was caught up in that.
Karen: This was during Nixon’s administration.
David: Yes, right. Nixon was a hero in my family. I was a young man then, but I’m talking about my parents. I remember watching and then you couldn’t believe some of the things that were being revealed. And eventually I see in my mind him with his arms outstretched, getting in the helicopter, he resigned.
Karen: It was a forced reason.
David: It might have been disgrace in a long way. But that captivated me, and I couldn’t leave it alone. It was in my thoughts all the time. And I feel that way now to the same degree. Not saying where I’m coming from in any way, but just saying the whole of the January 6th committee. When that committee meets, I want to see what is going on. And I try to figure it out, try to process it all. And my problem is, I not only watch it, but then I watch what the commentators say. And then I watch what other commentators say about what those commentators said about this.
Karen: You got a problem buddy.
David: I admitted it up front. I’m fighting that because I don’t want it to take over my days, but I have the same kind of feeling toward all these mass shootings over the 4th of July here in the Chicago Line area.
Karen: Shooting, a slaughter really.
David: Yeah, so sad, so sad. Why can’t we resolve this? And it’s very easy for me to get caught up in those things. And before I know it, I’ve spent a lot of time and it’s what I’m talking about all the time. So, it’s something that I have to be aware of and fight.
Karen: And you’re not saying that being aware is a problem. It’s when it becomes addictive and when you’re spending too much time doing it. And you’re kind of hearing the same things over and over and then checking another channel or another reported element.
David: Coming to the end of the day and saying, “Really I didn’t get done what I was supposed to get done today.” I will confess to another addiction, and I will begin to reveal this by saying something that you have a problem with.
Karen: Oh, I have problems?
David: So, this is a surprise. You know how you really like crossword puzzles.
Karen: I do.
David: In the same magazine that those come in come the Sudoku puzzles. I don’t even know if I pronounced that properly, but some years ago, I wondered what in the world are those crazy things? I got someone to explain it to me and then I got hooked on them.
Karen: But you do the hard ones.
David: I do.
Karen: I think it’s Sudoku.
David: Whatever it is.
Karen: Anyway, it’s dealing with math distribution on a chart in a certain way.
David: I don’t do the easy ones. Currently, I have two magazines to come to the house that involve one of those, every week. I would get so I’d click them off, you know, but then I’d go for the harder ones. And then I’d find myself taking sometimes and this is short an hour because sometimes those rough ones can take two or three hours. And yet it was kind of my calling in life to figure those out. They’re addictive to me. And I’m to the place where one of the magazines actually has the answers in it. And the other one doesn’t. I have to turn that page real fast. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but for me, it’s too much time.
Karen: Taking too much time.
David: Yeah.
Karen: And let me also add something here that…
David: …another of my addiction?
Karen: No.
David: Oh, good.
Karen: A good reason to do some of those word puzzles and little math puzzles as well because those exercises certain neural pathways in your brain. And as you age, you need to be doing that. So, it’s not bad to do those things. Probably a good thing to do is just that you feel like you’re giving too much time in a day to it. And if you cannot do it, then that’s what the addictive process.
David: That’s a very good way to put it because I find it knows my name. When that page is opened as I go through the magazine, it’s, “David, I’m waiting here for you.” And I’m saying as an elderly person, I don’t want to have my day when I’m to pass from this scene where I say, “Oh my goodness, I spent all that time doing those stupid puzzles.” I can understand saying that’s good for the neural pathways. Is that what you said?
Karen: Yeah, exercise is good for not only our bodies, but our brains. And so, it’s done a lot of reading on that and studying. It’s kind of fascinating to me.
David: Let me just insert here, Karen, that it’s one thing to say, I don’t want that to be the primary focus of my life. It’s another thing to say what I do want to be the focus of my life.
Karen: I think that’s the issue that most of us at any age, don’t you think, David, need to be wrestling with? What is it I want to be the focus of our life? But I think it’s even more than that. It’s a question more than a question of self-evaluation. It’s a question of what is God calling me to do and what has he gifted for me to do? And what are the holes, the gaps in his plan that he thinks I can fill?
So, that’s an interior prayerful, studying scripture kind of an effort and then all of a sudden, I think the answer begins to rise and you think, “Ooh this is interesting, maybe this is where I need to be using my gifts and abilities. Maybe there’s a hole in the world there that I’m equipped to fill.”
So, it’s a process that happens as we begin to examine this question.
David: Yes, and I do think I’m moving forward in that area. I’m finding myself to be spending long times in scripture. Whereas, before I would read a chapter to a day. And now, I’m finding myself reading 10, 12, 15 chapters at a time, and doing that a couple times a day and enjoying it. It hasn’t been frustrating to me. It’s almost been like a wonderful privilege that has been given to me.
Karen: You have on our notes Hebrews 11, the chapter about the heroes of the faith. What were you thinking of when you put that down here?
David: As I go through Hebrews 10, I am never going to be in that category. But I’d like to be able to say, when I look back on my life in eternity, maybe I was a sub-hero. I don’t know but I like those passages and they speak very much to my heart as to where I want to be in these last years of my life. So anyway, where do we go with this?
Karen: Okay, I don’t think this is just a problem that you and I are working with. I think this is a common human conundrum. I think that we want to be vital in the way we live. We want to know that our lives count and then as we age, and our positions change, and we retire from jobs we want to make sure that the last years of our lives are spent fruitfully. I don’t think this is just a dilemma that you’re working with right now. I think that all people of certain age get to that point.
David: I’m finding an intimacy in my prayer life with others and just privately.
Karen: Well, describe what that means.
David: I have this feeling that, David here again, yeah, we’re friends, aren’t we? Here’s what I want to be able to talk with you about today.
Karen: That’s the Lord speaking to your heart.
David: Yeah, it’s just like it’s still me doing most of the talking but it’s not nearly as much of “Are you there, God?” You know sometimes I feel like you’re a thousand miles away. It’s not that at all, its close friends coming together.
Karen: One of the things I’ve been studying is the fact that God wants that relationship with us. Isn’t that extraordinary?
David: Yes.
Karen: And the reason we want relationships with other people is that we’re made in his image, but he longs for that relationship with us. We think, you know, at times we’re lonely and don’t have friends or there’s no one around but he’s developed that desire into our hearts to want to want him. And so, when you come to him and you’re wanting to spend time with him that’s not obligatory. That’s not something he’s insisting you do because it’s a good thing to do. It’s because he wants to be close to you. He wants to have that intimacy with you that you didn’t have time so much in your past busy, busy, busy life.
David: Yes, way too busy but I do have it now. And that’s a very precious thing and I’m very grateful for it. And I’m quite fascinated by all this as to where all that leads in terms of the days. I think that slowing down, or if I put it being in the elderly category, you can keep the busy going the plate spinning and all that but, it’s really need to be able to say, “I don’t have to do that anymore. This is a new part of my life and I’m really grateful for it.”
Karen: So, what we’re asking our listener to do is to kind of take a similar journey if they haven’t already and many probably have. What are the things in my life no matter what age you are but because of our aging process we’re really looking at people who are in a similar place. What are the things in my life I need to be developing now? And what are the things in my life that I need to be dropping?
As we were talking about this pre-recording, we said that a lot of the things that take up American’s time are the screens. And so, you have your cell phone and that has the world in it practically. You have your television which the younger generation hardly watches at all anymore. You have your computer screens and it’s just so easy to get involved with those things because what happens is they’re designed to not only give us the information we need or to send out the emails if we’re emailing over them, but to attract us to the other stuff. So, it’s something flashes up and you think, “Ooh that’s interesting.” You’re not looking for it you’re not interested in. But it’s created to be interested so you follow after it. So, one of the things we’re going to have to learn to do in order to have time to develop this intimacy with God that he’s longing for, as well as we need, is to begin to control our screen viewing. And I think one of the best ways to assess this is to sit down one normal day and say, “How much time do I actually spend in front of the screens in my life?” And to do that time management evaluation over a week. And then total up how many hours you really did spend in front of the screens not just, “Yeah I spend a lot of time.”
You have it specifically in hand. This is sort of a time management normal kind of approach, but we don’t think about it so much in terms of the screen usage in our lives. So, I would suggest that to people. And then when you see the total, are you appalled by that total, “Ooh my goodness I didn’t realize I was spending so much time.” And then, now you have to prayerfully say, “What must I do to change that process?”
David: Okay can I go back to that sentence again?
Karen: Yeah, please do that what’s good.
David: As an elderly servant of Jesus, I want to make my relationship to him the primary focus of my remaining days. I don’t know how many days I have left but I am in this position where I say “I’m in the process of learning a closeness to the Lord that I’ve never experienced to this degree in my life and that’s very wonderful.” I don’t see it as an obligation. I see it as an incredible privilege. I’m finding it’s a journey that I never anticipated making because I didn’t know it was there that much. I was too busy running around serving the Lord but. and I still do. But I’m also enjoying that closeness and that wonderful intimacy that I’ve not known before. And I’m in a spiritual battle. I’m in a spiritual battle where I’m trying to say, “Okay, as I draw closer to the Lord, I’m growing in terms of a strategic ministry of prayer that I didn’t know before.” I don’t know how many times I would preach in the course of a week either through the media or traveling and then speaking somewhere. I’m not doing that now. It’s not by choice. I would still like to do some of that. But I’m in a position where something new and wonderful is replacing that and I’m enjoying it. And I’m very grateful to the Lord.
Karen: So, we’re telling people who are listening to us that you may be fearful of the future. You may not be in retirement. You may have questions about that. There are extraordinary spiritual opportunities at this time of life.
David: It’s pretty neat to be elderly.
Karen: It’s pretty neat to be elderly.
David: Yeah.
Outro: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.
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