Where Character Bottoms Out:

The Over-Extended Years of the 20s and 30s 

Michael Zigarelli 

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Editor's Note: This article, an excerpt from the book Cultivating Christian Character, is based on data collected from 2001 to 2003 through a tool called the Christian Character Index. That 65-item survey combines the individual survey items into several virtue constructs, like patience, self-control, joy, kindness, faithfulness, etc., thereby permitting the kind of analysis presented in this article. For more information about the theology behind the Christian Character Index, or about its design and psychometrics, please see the “more information” link on the Web site www.assess-yourself.org. For a closer look at the book Cultivating Christian Character, published by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), click here.

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The teen years are history.  Playtime is over.  Now it’s time for us to get serious about life.  And as we do, something else serious happens.  For typical Christians, as they traverse the years of age twenty to forty, their character often begins to drift from the character of Christ.  Ultimately, it may hit rock bottom during these years. 

Why is that?  What happens over these two decades that retards and reverses character and what, if anything, can we do about it?

As with any large group, it’s hard to generalize in a way that accurately captures the experiences of so many diverse people.  The big picture, though, reveals that a few time-intensive, demanding transitions during these years may explain the crisis in Christ-likeness.  Transition One involves work and career: many people enter the job market for the first time in their 20s and work assiduously, often excessively, to advance their careers.  Transition Two is marriage: most people get married for the first time during these years and confront the radical adjustment to a life of co-habitation and joint decision-making.  Then there’s Transition Three: parenthood, which we quickly learn is a synonym for servanthood.  As such, this may be the most abrupt and disruptive of the transitions.

As if that were not enough, some people add to their plate by further investing in their careers, pursuing graduate education or more technical training.  Some begin to accumulate many things, buying houses, buying cars, buying a host of other commodities for the first time, and possibly, as a result, they encounter their inaugural financial challenges.  Later in these two decades, when speed and efficiency have become a lifestyle, they may take on even more, accepting greater responsibilities at work, sprinting from one’s child’s activity to another, getting increasingly involved in church, PTA, and other community pursuits.

Welcome to the whirlwind that can be aptly tagged the “over-extended years.”  It’s the stage of life where responsibilities seem to outpace time and energy by a factor of two.  It’s the stage of life where the years seem like days and many days seem like years.  My study of 2,490 Christians in this age group exposed some alarming (although not altogether unexpected) trends among this group.  Spiritually speaking, everything that should be headed north appears to be headed south: one’s relationship with God, one’s character, and one’s overall life satisfaction.  More specifically, as shown below, such things tend to decline for twenty-somethings and then remain relatively flat throughout their thirties. 

The chief culprit of this deterioration, not surprisingly, is a complicated lifestyle: too much to do, too little time, too much change, and, consequently, complete exhaustion.  This article takes an empirical look at the specifics of the problem and offers some initial recommendations for discipling twenty to forty year olds.  Let’s begin by examining one of the more disconcerting trends, the de-prioritization of God.

God Gets Crowded Out

I should say up front that most Christians in the age range of twenty to forty do indeed desire to be God-centered people.  They are still hungry for God and they still want to become more like Jesus Christ.  The problem for them is the shrinking time available for knowing God and for pursuing growth.  Lack of time translates into less prayer and less of the other spiritual disciplines, often resulting in an unplanned drifting from God.  In fact, not only is subsiding prayer a pervasive problem, as shown in Figure 1, so too is the declining practice of confession of sin, daily worship of God, daily time of quiet seclusion from others, and cheerful service to others.  All of these disciplines are practiced less frequently during the two decades from age twenty to forty than they are at any other point in life. 

Figure 1

Percentage of Men and Women Who Pray

Five or More Times Each Day

(Note: Each vertical line represents an age group)

Of particular importance, and especially telling in this regard, is the absence of the regular seclusion time, also known in Christian circles as “the discipline of solitude and silence.”  Dallas Willard, among the foremost contemporary authorities on the spiritual disciplines, says this of the solitude:

“Indeed, solitude and silence are powerful means to grace.  Bible study, prayer and church attendance, among the most commonly prescribed activities in Christian circles, generally have little effect for soul transformation, as is obvious to any observer…Their failure to bring about change is precisely because the body and soul are so exhausted, fragmented and conflicted that the prescribed activities cannot be appropriately engaged, and by and large degenerate into legalistic and ineffectual rituals.  Lengthy solitude and silence, including rest, can make them very powerful.

… God will, generally speaking, not compete for our attention.  If we will not withdraw from things that obsess and exhaust us into solitude and silence, he will usually leave us to our own devices.”[1]

Clearly, Willard conceptualizes this as a pivotal discipline – practically a sine qua non for growth because it is the foundation on which other disciplines are built.  But as indicated in Figure 2, for many adults ages twenty-five to thirty-five, regular seclusion time is a mere fantasy.  It just doesn’t happen, thereby sapping other disciplines of their power and thus, leaving these people, in Willard's words, “to [their] own devices.”  God-centered living and spiritual growth become the first casualties in the war for time.

Table 1 provides more evidence that these years are the low-point of God-centeredness.  Here we see some highly-consistent information about some of the spiritual outcomes for this group. The difficulties identified in Table 1 – becoming the person God wants me to be, turning to God when making choices, seeking God’s will through prayer, being obedient to God – further expose the recession in God-centeredness.  What can we do to help our friends in this age group?  We'll explore some discipleship implications later in this article.

Figure 2

Percentage of Men and Women

Who Experience a Daily Time of Seclusion

(Note: Each vertical line represents an age group)

Table 1

Specific Challenges During the Years of 20 to 40

Character Bottoms Out

Related to the time crunch and the lower priority of God in their life, many Christians tend to hit their low point in character sometime during the years of twenty to forty, usually between twenty-five and thirty.  In almost every area that we measured for this study, character qualities bottom out at this stage of life, appreciably lower than both the preceding teenage years and the subsequent middle age years.  Most conspicuous in this trough are the virtues of "joy," "patience & gentleness," "self-control," and "inner peace."

As we see in Figure 3, joy and patience & gentleness decline and then remain relatively low from ages twenty-five to forty.  Inner peace and self-control also drop considerably through the twenties, reaching their nadir during the late twenties, but then begin to recover in the thirties.  Other virtues measured for this study but not shown in Figure 3 (kindness, faithfulness, forgiveness, gratitude, and compassion) all bottom out as well at this stage of life, but less dramatically than the four virtues shown in the Figure.

Figure 3

The Low Point of Christian Character

(Note: Each vertical line represents an age group)

What are the specific manifestations of these character problems?  Perhaps the most visible manifestation is in Christians’ release of anger.  People in this age range struggle more than other Christians with “proper release of anger” and “controlling my tongue in the home.”  It’s to be expected.  An oppressive workload, an incessant dearth of time and personal space, the continually shifting expectations of life, the drifting from God – all of these undoubtedly lay the sandy foundation for the weakening of inner peace, patience, and self-control.  Then, what’s on the inside shows up on the outside in the form of irritability, exasperation, and a loose tongue.

Another manifestation of the character problems is a shrinking willingness to address others’ needs.  “Volunteering time to help others” and “cheerful service to others” slump to all-time lows in this period.  Such activities take time and clearly, twenty to forty year olds cannot give what they do not have.  Moreover, as joy goes, so goes attention to others’ needs.  Here, with joy on the decline, service follows suit.

Life Satisfaction Strikes Out 

Given what's been said above, one could easily surmise that many, many people age twenty to forty experience a decline in life satisfaction.  This is, in some ways, paradoxical in light of the exciting new experiences of marriage, parenthood, budding careers and so on, but the cumulative pressures of life may eclipse all else for many people.  Several survey items bear poignant witness to this conclusion, but two in particular stand out.

First, and most plainly, “love of life” declines steadily throughout this time period, hitting bottom around age thirty-five and remaining there until one’s early forties (Figure 4).  This is true for both men and women (though not shown in Figure 4).  Second, I found in a separate analysis that the desire to “celebrate life" drops rapidly from the teenage years through one’s twenties, and then remains relatively low through one’s thirties.  Again, this is consistent across genders. 

So overall, we can say that for many Christians between the ages of twenty and forty, daily demands progressively pilfer life satisfaction.  For these people, life is just less fun and enjoyable than it used to be.  In fact, life may be perceived by many as more a burden than a blessing.  Accordingly, there's an abundant opportunity - indeed a significant need - for would-be disciplers to intervene and render assistance.  Let’s turn to that issue next.

Figure 4

I Love My Life

How You Can Help Your Exhausted Friend

What we’ve seen so far is that the core problems for this age group are time constraints, over-extension, and exhaustion – a lifestyle of busyness that relegates God to a lower priority, diminishes character and reduces the quality of life.  What does all this imply for those of us who are inclined to help our friends in this age group?

It’s tempting to fall back on the usual formulas for beating life’s busyness -- teach them about adopting a simpler lifestyle, gently invite them to make some choices, correct them in Christian love for leaving God in the dust, and so on.  While these are sometimes wise courses of action, when you’re dealing with people who are oppressed by responsibilities that are often not of their own choosing, recommending these formulas could be an egregious error.  Such suggestions will likely be interpreted as naïve and clichéd responses of people who are oblivious to the realities of this stage of life.  Worse yet, these suggestions may be heard as pious and condescending, given the tacit assumption therein that “busy” people have sinfully chosen to ignore God and now need to immediately re-align their priorities. 

If you are in a position to disciple someone in this age group, stop and look deeper.  Adopt the more prudent attitude here.  There may be some very legitimate reasons for the frenetic pace of life for these people.  Try not to assume that they have chosen an indifference to God or an intentional disregard for spiritual priorities.  In many cases, the problem is that God-time has been supplanted by urgent daily responsibilities like children, jobs, and sustaining a marriage.  Accordingly, point one for anyone who wants to disciple people in this stage of life is this: don’t impute improper motives when you see that they are too busy for God.  Accept their busyness for now and work toward the gradual abatement of it.  Infrequently is there a quick-fix to simplify and reorient their lives.

In practical terms, this means that if you really want to help these folks become more sanctified and satisfied, you should consider creating some space for them to do so.  Spiritual growth takes time – a lot of time – and many kilowatts of energy as well, but time and energy are the most scarce commodities for this group.  So set up a way to carry some of their burden, furnishing them with the precious gifts of space and rest to rekindle their relationship with God.  Provide child care whenever possible.  Babysit for them overnight, if possible.  Perhaps you can go to where they are for your discipleship time, rather than making them go out of their way.  Bring the requisite books to them, maybe even provide a summary or an outline of those books, recognizing that concentrated reading time has also been a casualty of their new life.  Be sensitive to their workload and spoil them as much as possible.  Seldom will this result in "enabling" them to remain addicted to over-extension; instead, they will appreciate the effort more than you can imagine, and it will supercharge your coaching.

Ultimately, these sorts of gifts will earn you the right to be heard on issues of simplifying life, loving God more, the priority of prayer, becoming more patient and self-controlled, and other challenges enumerated earlier in this article.  The prerequisites, though, are non-judgmentalism, sensitivity to their lifestyle, and a willingness to carry some of their burden.  Remember, many of these people are hurting, becoming increasingly alienated from God and from others, and maybe not liking themselves too much either.  Meet their most essential needs for time, rest, solitude, and convenience, and eventually your friend will experience the dramatic and refreshing changes that have been so elusive.

Dr. Michael Zigarelli is an Associate Professor of Management at Messiah College and editor of the Christianity 9 to 5 Resource Center. This article is excerpted from his book, Cultivating Christian Character (ACSI, 2004). For more information about overcoming overload, consider Dr. Zigarelli’s book Freedom from Busyness: Biblical Help for Overloaded People (LifeWay, 2005)