Enjoying Your Own Decline

Nobody likes to talk about it, but the decline is coming. I’m not talking about economics, western culture, or common courtesy. I’m talking about us. You and me. Life is a mountain with two sides, and no matter how high you climb, you’ll still end up at the very bottom someday. Even the god-like pharaohs landed there, and the treasure in their tombs was eventually plundered. That’s how it goes. If you’re lucky, you’ll live long enough to experience the decline as a gradual downward slope. For others, it’s more like a cliff. One thing is certain: decline is coming.

It may be your strength. It may be your beauty. It may be your mind. It may be your influence, the relevance of your work, your notoriety, or your social prominence. Eventually, it will be all of the above. I guess it makes sense that we don’t like to talk about this. It sounds dire, doesn’t it? And yet I’ve witnessed people living out the years of their decline with a strange, luminous joy that refused to track with their diminishing abilities and strength—on the contrary, it actually grew stronger and brighter as they weakened and let go. How is this possible? I want to know, because I want that joy.

Everyone declines, but not everyone declines with joy. It feels backwards and counter-intuitive that this should even be possible, but that’s only because we live in a society that defines our value and worth, our meaning and purpose and identity—our everything—by the height of our ascendancy. I’ve noticed a common denominator among the people I’ve known who have declined with joy: they reject this metric. They simply do not live for their own glory, status, success, or standing—so when it comes time to let go of these temporary treasures, they’re able to do so freely, without being destroyed in the process. Instead of prioritising their own success (which will inevitably end), they live beyond themselves—for God, whose glory does not wane, for his kingdom, which is rising even now like a sun that never sets, and for the enduring happiness of lifting up others. This is the joy of Jesus, letting himself be cast down from the highest throne to the lowest grave in order to lift his children all the way up to heaven (Hebrews 12:2). This is the joy that accepts decline, even rejoices in decline, so that others may rise. This is the joy that multiplies and expands far beyond the tight limits of self-focused happiness because it genuinely, wholeheartedly rejoices in the ascendancy of others.

If you can really and truly enjoy other people’s victories, you’ll always be in a good position to be happy. There will always be others around you that you can invest in and build up—and the more you invest, the more joy you’ll find in their success. Better yet, when the happiness in lifting others is combined with the security of seeing beyond your own decline to the eternal inheritance waiting for God’s children, the result is even more powerful. I’ve seen it. I have met people who lived in this confidence, and died in it. I have myself been lifted by those who were experiencing their own decline. I have seen the joy shining in their eyes as they leveraged their own waning strength to increase mine. And as thankful as I am for the strength they gave me, what I want even more is the shining joy they found in giving it away.