AS I APPROACH MIDDLE AGE (yes, it is hard to admit I’m almost 40), I have started thinking about what I have accomplished and still want to do. Consequently, a couple of metaphors caught my attention while I was teaching a psychology class: Life as a Journey and Life as a Story. I thoroughly enjoy finding connections between psychology and biblical concepts, and these two metaphors allow me to do just that. Let’s break them down and find practical applications for our spiritual walk. I challenge you, after reading this article, to pick one for your life and continue to apply these concepts individually and in your family.
LIFE AS A JOURNEY
All humans share the same periods of development: birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the elderly stage. Each stage has its challenges and joys. Each stage helps us grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Erik Erickson, one of the founders of developmental psychology, paints a picture of each developmental stage.1
The first of four stages explains our development from birth until age 12, including parental attachment and physical and cognitive development. Proverbs 22:6 reinforces how imperative Christian upbringing is during this time: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” The events in this stage influence us for the rest of our lives.
Then comes adolescence, when we start developing an individual sense of self and a personal identity. Theologian Walter Brueggemann suggests that “as we move from the question ‘Who am I?’ to the question ‘Whose am I?’, eventually all questions about identity become questions of vocation,” which he defines as “finding a purpose for being in the world that is related to the purposes of God.”2 This part of the journey is crucial for the future, and Christian mentors are especially needed to guide teenagers to find their identity in Christ (1 Peter 2:9; Ephesians 2:10).
Then comes the need for intimacy, where young adults desire a partner to share their lives with (Mark 10:8, 9). Before a successful relationship can happen, both individuals must achieve their sense of identity and maturity.3 Happy marriages are made of people who can fight fair and balance negative feedback with tenderness.4
Next, we enter Generativity. During this stage, adults want to help society and the next generation. The adults who find a way to serve others and reach outward instead of inward will achieve the greatest happiness (Galatians 5:13, 14). One of the most consistent findings in psychology is that happy people are helpful people.5 Happy individuals experience success in different areas of life, such as marriage, friendship, employment, income, work performance, mental health, and psychological health. We adults are responsible for being mentors and forming a support system for the next generation, especially spiritually. We need to remember what it was like to be young, open ourselves up to being vulnerable, and heal so that we can have a bigger impact on the upcoming generation.
Finally, we arrive at the ego integrity stage, which gives us “the ability to look back on our life and see that the various pieces and phases of the journey fit together to form a meaningful and worthwhile whole.”6 This is so important! We must look back and see that despite our mistakes and bad decisions, God guided our lives, enabling us to serve Him with our talents. We need to believe what Romans 8:28 says: “And we
know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (ESV).
LIFE AS A STORY
Reflect on one of your favorite stories you have read about or seen in a movie. What made it special? Was it the plot, the hero versus the villain, the struggle, the drama? Each of us has a story from the moment we were born until now. How did it start? Who has been part of it? What has happened in your life story?
Psychologist Dan McAdams has spent his career researching life as a story. His findings reveal that we are constantly changing. How so? Well, try to remember who you were as a child and teenager. Are you the same person now as you were then? Do you have the same levels of empathy? Or have your life experiences changed you?
Viewing life as a story helps us create the initial chapters in adolescence and young adulthood.7 We realize that children speak and reason like children, but adults give up childish ways (1 Corinthians 13:11). Based on our early years, we expand on the rest of the story. We don’t know how our story on this Earth ends, but we know God can continue guiding our path as the chapters unfold.
We experience “positive aging” at the scenes of ripe old age.8 Longitudinal studies found the following predictors for a healthy and satisfied life at age 75: not smoking, no history of alcohol abuse, adaptability and mature coping methods, healthy weight, regular exercise, years of education (future orientation and perseverance), and—most importantly— stable, loving relationships. How do we achieve this? From the time we are young, we make decisions that will write each chapter of our lives. We heal and cooperate with God to become more like Christ. A relationship with Him brings purpose and meaning to our story.
THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT
I have concluded that we have a story within our journey. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6, ESV). He also says, “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray” (Isaiah 35:8, ESV)
If we are Christians, we are walking the way of life in Jesus. We cooperate with Him, preparing our lives for the journey ahead and leaving behind the luggage that has weighed us down. Only death will stop our story and our journey. And even then, it is merely a pause—a rest—for those who sleep in Jesus.
We are free in Jesus, and we should do as the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3:13, 14: “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (ESV). Let’s continue to write our story and be counted with the redeemed: “Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—those He redeemed from the hand of the foe, those He gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south” (Psalm 107:2, 3).
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1 David Myers and Malcom Jeeves, Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 2003).
2 J. Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), p. 93.
3 Myers and Jeeves, Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith.
4 David Myers and Jean Twenge, Social Psychology, 14th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2015).
5 Myers and Twenge, Social Psychology, p. 344.
6 Myers and Jeeves, Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith, p. 50.
7 Dan McAdams, “Continuity and Growth in the Life Story—Or Is It Stagnation and Flux?” Qualitative Psychology 6(2) (2019): 206–214, https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000151.
8 George Vaillant, “Positive Aging,” in Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, 2nd ed., ed. P.A. Linley and S. Joseph (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2015), pp. 561–578.
