Students that study hard long for vacation, and hard-working people with a job long for annual leave. But for those who are studying to get into a good university or working hard to find a job aren’t able to enjoy the free time that they are given.

While reading Tim Keller’s “Every Good Endeavor: Connecting your work to God’s work”, this sentence gave me new perspective: “We are given specific work to do because we are made in God’s image”. Over-working, or workaholics – working restlessly out of greed without rest – is an unfortunate consequence of sin in this world, as God’s original plan for work was for it to be a blessing reserved for mankind only. Through work, we find purpose and experience true joy by serving God and neighbours.

While it may seem nice to be able to not work, travel around the world, eat whatever I want, and have time to rest and relax, in reality, it’s not as nice as it seems. When we hear news about people winning the lottery, we often imagine what we would do with that money if we had the same fortune. But we also know that life without work for those lottery winners has been disastrous. Indeed, it seems true to say that work helps self-realisation and helps us understand the purpose of mankind, helping us understand the meaning of life.

Then what about our lives after we’ve aged? Since our bodies are weaker, our passion goes down and lose vigour once we’ve retired and made way for the younger generation. We experience issues with our health and bodies; even with make-up and expensive clothes, we don’t look as good as before. However, while life at an old age isn’t really about achievement and productivity, it can be a time for us to provide rest to the younger generation. And new things still await.

Last Easter, while I was chatting to Pastor Ahn, who came as our speaker for the Easter retreat, his wife mentioned that she had been depressed due to a few health issues, including possible vision loss in one eye in the near future. But then, she told me that Pastor Ahn had said to her “life at an old age is something new to us, so won’t there be meaning in experiencing that?”, and that really touched her heart and made her grateful instead. Of course, aging does mean that we lose a lot of things that are visible to the eye. But there is also meaning in experiencing the highs and lows of life that our good God has allowed us in this world where we co-exist with sin.

Instead of being upset by the fact that we have to rely on others or being depressed by the small mistakes that come due to our weakened bodies, we should use these as opportunities to thank others and humbly accept our weaknesses – that will be the best way to prepare ourselves to stand in front of Jesus. In the same way that labour pains lead to new birth, experiencing weakness and illness at an older age is necessary for us to enter eternal life. Life can be beautiful, if we have the right perspective.