The End is Not the End: A Midlife Perspective Shift (by Jenn Lee)

Chad Lee

Apr 4

8 min read

Well, I turned 40 this week.

This birthday feels like a milestone, and, if I’m being honest, I’ve been processing it with some difficulty. I wouldn’t call it a midlife crisis, exactly, but there has definitely been some wrestling with the question: “What do I have to show for my life if it is, indeed, halfway over?”

I’ve always loved and identified with the quote from the movie You’ve Got Mail about leading a “small life . . . well, valuable but small.”[1] I have always been okay with obscurity. I’ve been content to live in anonymity . . . knowing, loving, serving, impacting and being loved by a few dear family members, friends, and neighbors. But lately, my middle-aged heart has been asking, “Is this all there is?”

“Is this all there is?”

The majority of my time is spent doing mundane and repetitive tasks: making meal after meal for endlessly hungry people and running through the continuous cycle of laundry and dishes and cleaning.

For many people, most of their waking hours are spent working at a job that they’re not passionate about. We wake up, fill the car with gas, and get to work doing whatever it is we are supposed to do. We return home to eat our meals, clean up, and go to bed…then we wake up the next morning to do it all again.

Before we think this is a modern problem, check out what King Solomon wrote, thousands of years ago, in the book of Ecclesiastes:

"The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new'? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after."

-Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 (ESV throughout)

"No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them" (Eccl. 1:11).

We all want our lives to matter. There is such pressure in our world to do big things. Important things. To be an influencer. To leave a mark and make a name for ourselves. It’s a problem in our culture, to be sure, but Christians fall into this way of thinking too. We get fixated on numbers and measurable success. The ordinary, mundane, repetitive days of our lives can feel meaningless.

When I was in high school, the song “Legacy,” by Nichole Nordeman, was popular. I loved that song so much! I memorized every line, choreographed and performed a dance to it, and even made it part of my first email address (@hotmail.com!).

But this morning, I thought about the idea of “leaving a legacy” in a different way.

It’s bold, but I’m going to say it…

We were not created to leave a legacy.

We weren’t made to leave this world at all.

We were made to go on living forever, in perfect fellowship with God, in a perfect world.

The reality of James 4:14 was not God’s original plan for His creation. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time then vanishes."

Consider, too, Psalm 90:10, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away . . ."

Friends, we were made for more than 70 or 80 years on this earth.

We were made for eternity.

Something deep within us knows that there is more than the vapor of this earthly life. To quote C.S. Lewis, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[2]

This world, and our lives within it, are passing away. We feel the weight of that reality daily. This world cannot satisfy our deepest longings or fulfill our greatest hopes. And yet, it is our reality, like it or not. Our lives are a vapor but everything in us wants our impact on this world to be cement.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." -C. S. Lewis

Because we were made for eternity, I think this relentless longing to have something to show for our lives is actually a result of the fall. The questions we ask as we age are ones that God never intended for us to ask: “Is my life really halfway over?” “How has it gone so fast?” “And what have I even done with it?”

We wrestle with these questions and struggle with aging. It feels like the sand in the hourglass is dwindling downward, and when it’s gone–that’s the end.

But, to quote Jamie MacDonald, “What if the end is not the end, and we’re just getting started?"[3]

I think the key to being freed from the feeling of hopelessness in this fleeting life is reframing our perspective with the truth: death is not the end.

“What if the end is not the end, and we’re just getting started?” Jamie MacDonald

The reality of Jesus’s resurrection gives us this glorious hope: life extends beyond the grave. This life is not all there is. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon is referring to “everything under the sun” being meaningless, but we know that, through Christ, there is so much more than what we see and experience on Earth.

We live in the “already, but not yet” reality of God’s Kingdom. We live in this passing world, but we live for another world altogether. What if we shift our focus completely away from leaving a legacy behind when we pass, and focus, instead, on making deposits into the eternal life that lies ahead of us?

The shift feels subtle, but so very significant. Our desire for purpose in this life must be rooted in the truth that what we do for Jesus and His Kingdom will last, even if our names are forgotten.

And this beautiful Kingdom we are living for? It’s an upside-down Kingdom.

This world says that your work only matters if it’s seen. In Matthew 6:4, Jesus tells us that our Father sees the gifts we offer in secret, and will reward us for them.
This world says that your gifts only matter if they’re grand. Matthew 10:42 says that even a cup of cold water given in Jesus’s name is significant to the Lord.
This world says that your ministry only matters if it’s successful. But God redefines success for us as faithfulness (Matthew 25:21)

While there is pressure in our culture to do big things for God, think about all the people through history that simply lived “normal” Christian lives.

On page 46 of his book, In the Year of our Lord, Sinclair Ferguson says it this way:

“We have seen that Justin Martyr was brought to Christ by an otherwise unknown elderly Christian taking a quiet walk along the shore; Augustine came to faith through an eloquent bishop’s kindness and a mother’s prayers. Justin’s name lives on in the history of the church–but the old man who pointed him to Christ is forgotten. Many Christians are familiar with the name of Augustine. Fewer know the name of his mother or the name of his minister, Ambrose. 

There is a pattern and a lesson here. As we read the lives of men and women who have been strategically used by Christ in building His kingdom, we note that the names of those through whom they were brought to faith in Jesus Christ are often forgotten or lost. But their significance is incalculable. God delights to use the hidden and the forgotten. 

This is, surely, a tremendous encouragement to people like us who live our Christian lives in relative obscurity. We do not expect to find our names in any history book. And yet, it may be that someone to whom we are kind because we love Jesus will be taken up and extraordinarily used by God to build the church of Jesus Christ. Faithfulness is far more significant than fame when Jesus is building His church.”[4]

This perspective shift gives purpose to every single thing that is done in love–love for Christ and love for others.

"Faithfulness is far more significant than fame when Jesus is building His church." -Sinclair Ferguson

There is purpose in the repetitive and mundane acts of cooking, cleaning, changing diapers, and wiping sticky hands and faces.

There is purpose in our workplaces, whether they are our "dream jobs" or not.

There is purpose in the interruptions and inconveniences that we face.

There is purpose in the investments we make in the lives of those around us: our friends, neighbors, family members, children, and even strangers.

For me, I have found purpose in investing in the next generation:

teaching God’s Word to little ones at Bible Study Fellowship each week,
teaching and discipling my own four children,
and mentoring the younger women in my life.

I am also recognizing, more and more, the impact of my prayers, and how my prayers can actually transcend my lifetime here on earth. (I'm pretty sure this thought could be its own blog post!)

As God reorients our thinking and fills our minds with Kingdom purpose, we can release the questions:

“How will they remember me?”
“Will anyone even remember me at all?”
“What do I have to show for my life?”

Instead, we can say, as Paul did in Acts 20:24:

“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

Like Paul, let's invest our lives in Kingdom purposes and endeavor to finish our race well. But friend, remember, the end is not the end.

End Notes:

[1] You've Got Mail. Directed by Nora Ephron. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Laurel Productions, 1998. DVD. Warner Bros. Entertainment, 1998.

[2] Lewis, C. S. "Reflections: The Desire For My True Country." C. S. Lewis Institute. January 1, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2026. https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-january-2020/.

[3] MacDonald, Jamie. "Won't Let Go." Track 11 on Jamie MacDonald. Brentwood, TN: Capitol Christian Music Group, 2026.

[4] Ferguson, Sinclair. In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History. Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018.