God is Calling You: What Do You Make of Your Age?

The way God calls people throughout the Bible is a fascinating topic to study. He clearly has different calls for different people – in the Bible some were called to be priests, some to be prophets, some to be kings, and some even to be artists.

The way in which He calls varies too. Some hear an audible voice (Jeremiah and Samuel), some have a profound encounter with the presence of God (Moses and Isaiah), some receive a prophetic word (David), and some find that God breaks their heart for a cause (Nehemiah).

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that God calls people of all ages. Young and old; aged, middle aged and barely aged; adolescents and adults – all are called by God. The Bible seems to imply there is no upper or lower age limit for service in the Kingdom.

God calls the very young like Samuel and Jeremiah to be prophets whilst they’re still no more than boys. Likewise David was anointed for service when he was just a boy, tending sheep in the fields. Paul writes to Timothy reminding him not to let others look down on him because he’s young. And the disciples were all probably in their late teens or at most their early twenties when Jesus called them to follow him. God calls the very young.

God also calls the elderly. Abraham was 75 when God called him to leave his place of birth and set out towards the land of Canaan. Moses was 80 when God appeared in the burning bush and gave him the task of returning to Egypt to lead his people to freedom. Sarah was 90 when God called her to have a child! So God calls the elderly too.

Yes, God clearly calls both the young and the old to service. But what about those in the middle? What about those adults who are in the prime of life? Why do we have fewer stories in Scripture of those in their 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s responding to God’s call?

It’s surely not that God doesn’t call that age group. But perhaps that age group are less likely to hear Him. During those years we can become so consumed with other things in life – family, work, career, looking after children, looking after parents, all sorts of responsibilities – that we easily crowd God out from our lives.

There’s something else as well. When we are ‘in the prime of life’, when we’ve finished our education and are raring to make our mark on the world, it can be easy to think we can do it all on our own. Sadly it’s easy even for Christians to stop looking to God during those years of life. We try to do it in our own strength, and think we can become self-sufficient. We stop hearing from God because we’ve stopped listening to Him.

The story of David is fascinating since it’s the fullest picture the Bible gives of a person’s complete life, rather than just a snapshot of them at a specific age. We first meet David as a youth who heard from God and delighted in obeying him. He progressed to being a successful man who won the world’s acclaim, but who somehow lost something of his intimacy with God. That led him into sin, and into nearly losing his Kingdom. As an older man, chastened, wiser and weaker, he then needed to return to God at some later point.

When David was younger he seemingly only needed to pick up his harp for him to be able to worship God and to hear from Him. And as a young soldier on the run from King Saul he regularly hears God’s instructions to him. But when he becomes King, we find that as part of his inner court he has a personal seer (Gad) a personal prophet (Nathan) and a wise counsellor (Ahithophel) whose wisdom is so in demand it is treated as the words of God. Now it’s good practice for any leader to surround themselves with wise and spiritual people, and to take advantage of their advice. But perhaps David also found once he became king that he was hearing from God less regularly than he used to, as a shepherd boy who played the harp. Indeed, after David becomes king in Jerusalem, we no longer hear of God speaking to him directly – all of God’s communication to him comes through the priests and the prophets.

Perhaps David realised this danger, and so surrounded himself with such good people. But perhaps this distance between him and God when he was middle aged also contributed to the sin he committed with Bathsheba, and all the trouble that resulted. God forgave David, but there is a sense that the relationship between the two of them was never as close again as it formerly had been.

If you’re neither very young nor very old, how is your relationship with God? Are you still hearing from Him regularly? Are you dependent on Him? Or are you trying to do too much in your own strength? Are you resolved to not lose Him during your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, whilst you’re chasing success? What can do you do to ensure you keep hearing when He calls you during these decades?

One Rock helps Christians of all ages to discern God’s vision for their lives. We believe passionately that God calls all people, and that His call is not one size fits all. Some are called to lead churches, to a ministry of preaching and teaching. This is a crucial role, and we need good people to respond to this call. But it’s not the only way of service. Some are called to politics, some to business, some to the media, the arts, the law, the universities or a host of other professions, where they are to use their work to bring the kingdom of God to society.