What an Old Movie Taught Me About Turning Forty – Christ and Pop Culture

When I was a kid, there were several movies that made the weekly rounds on cable television. It wasn’t always the same channel, but these films somehow snuck their way into a permanent rotation of mid-nineties programming. Over time, they were burned in the collective memory of millennials growing up during that time—for better or for worse. Some of them I still watch today—Grumpy Old Men, Father of the Bride, and Back to the Future. One of these films seemed to be on more than the others though. It wasn’t the best or funniest, but it had some combination of comedy, adventure, and mystery that kept folks tuning in. That movie was City Slickers.

In the movie, Billy Crystal plays Mitch, a thirty-nine-year-old urban dad beginning a mid-life crisis. Mitch is a radio executive with a wife and children he loves, but he has begun worrying that his best days are behind him. The movie starts with Mitch saying this: “Have you ever reached a point in your life where you say, ‘This is the best I’m ever gonna look, the best I’m ever gonna feel, the best I’m ever gonna do, and it ain’t great’?” Shortly after, Mitch stands in front of his kid’s class at career day and offers some advice on life to the children. After trying to explain his career and quickly realizing that the students could care less, he begins telling them to enjoy this time of their lives, because it is only going to get worse. They will gain weight, be stressed out, and their dreams will go up in smoke. By the end of the speech, the kids are blankly staring at Mitch horrified.

Despite the pessimistic beginning, the movie ends up with a great message. The story is about Mitch’s journey in redefining himself and what adventure and meaning look like. The film hinges on a simple point: entering midlife as a man is hard. On some level, we know that some of our best days are behind us. Except for a few, most of us will only get weaker, more tired, and more out of shape for the rest of our lives. If the battle of the mind is to choose hope over the tragic, this might not be the best theme to perseverate on. As Christians, though, we have a better (but unexpected) story. 

I recently turned forty. Turning forty has been a reminder of something we all try to forget—we are not in control of our lives. To be honest, my life doesn’t look like I thought it would at forty. I’m sure nobody’s life does—but mine feels more acute. For the past several years I have been sick in a way that has limited my capacity to fully function. Part of this limitation is that I can’t move my body the way I could a few years ago—I can play with my kids, but it is often tough. My emotional and mental well-being has suffered as well, and I spend much of my time wondering what the future will hold. It’s not that I lack hope, but I sometimes wonder what the nature of that hope really is. Does God promise healing? Is the abundance of hope we are given in Scripture for this earthly life? For the afflicted, what does it look like to take hold of God’s promises while enjoying the grace we have been given? As I turn forty, the real question before me is this: am I living in a tragedy or a comedy in the classical sense (with a happy ending)? 

The movie City Slickers ends as a comedy. What Mitch finds out is that the adventure, excitement, and meaning offered to him at forty is more than enough to keep him satisfied. It is an ending that fits well with the American narrative of self-determination. It’s also a fitting ending for much of American Christianity. American Christianity is dead-set on convincing us that we are living in a comedy. In most areas of evangelicalism, redemption is the only narrative. A few years ago, I saw a poster in a Christian university gym that showed a basketball player shooting a jump shot over the hand of a defender. Predictably, Philippians 4:13 was plastered across the bottom—“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” While I understand the sentiment behind the word picture, I typically find that type of language irritating. Can we really do all things? I certainly can’t heal myself or dunk a basketball. As Christians we always endure some faulty views of Scripture inside the church, but what really irks me about that type of poster is that it hides the beauty of the true gospel. Certainly the overarching theme of our lives and the story of creation is one of redemption, but there must be many tragedies endured to get there.

In a recent interview, one of my favorite writers, Bethel McGrew, was asked about the books that have shaped her. The first one she mentioned was a book by Thomas Sowell titled The Vision of the Anointed. McGrew chose this book because it taught her as a teenager that many of life’s problems are unsolvable. Despite what politicians or self-help gurus tell us, much of what ails us as a society and as individuals are tragedies we must endure. Is there a cure for systematic poverty? Probably not. Sure, we can mitigate its effects, but we cannot eradicate the misfortune, illness, and even laziness that might cause it. The more we have tried to cure mental illness, the worse things have gotten. The same is true of a myriad of other issues. Is this cynical? I hope not, but at forty I want to be realistic. I have hope, but the nature of that hope has been shifting for quite some time.

My life and faith journey have led me to be disillusioned and hopeful at the same time. I think it’s the proper posture for a believer. One of the blessings of my age is that I have seen enough of this world to be disillusioned. In a car ride with my daughter the other day, she asked me which age of childhood was my favorite? The answer came easily: ten years old. The answer is easy because I remember that age as being the moment when I began believing that I could accomplish anything in the future. Up to that time, I had been an average hockey player, but that winter, I set up a net in my basement and committed to shooting one-hundred pucks a day—including weekends. Not only did I hone my shots on the rusty goal with the canvas goaltender tied to the edges, I stick-handled golf balls in and out of cones while running the stairs in my house between drills. 

Within a year after beginning those drills, I was one of the better hockey players on my team. From that point on, being good at hockey became part of my identity. For a boy entering his teenage years, it was a decent identity to have. There was more though. That experience of willing myself into something I was not before left me with a newfound confidence in the power of effort. Limitations had dropped off and the world before me looked like a blank slate to be conquered. Later on, I would eat up the narrative of the Republican politicians who told me that the only thing standing between me and wealth was effort. This is not a completely wrong story, but it certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. 

Throughout my forty years, I’ve shifted back and forth between believing that I can accomplish anything to a more realistic view of myself. The past couple of years have forced a reckoning with reality that I never wanted to face. As someone who felt that legacy was important as a young man, it is unlikely that my name will ever be in a history book or on a building somewhere. I have not created something that will lead to generational wealth for future family members, and I have spent some of that time having to rebuild everything. What I have learned though, is this: our lives as Christians are inherently tragic in a redemptive way. If that sounds confusing, hang with me for a moment. 

My wife and I often talk about the nature of hope in this world. Are God’s promises for this world or the next? In the same week, we can see one family’s prayers answered in the affirmative while another family watches their lives fall apart as tragedy strikes. If one of the goals of the Christian life is to gain wisdom, this is something we must make sense of. If we never wrestle with this problem, we will end up in one of two ditches—we will be overly optimistic or nihilistic. The problem is that neither will lead to the depth of hope the gospel calls us to. What is the answer though? I think the secret is that there is less of an answer than there is a vehicle that helps us navigate through life. 

Towards the end of City Slickers, Mitch has a conversation with an old rugged cowboy named Curly who has led them in their cattle call. Curly tells Mitch that the secret of life is this: “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean s***.” I was reminded of this recently when I was thinking through some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past forty years. The movie never answers the question; it leaves it open-ended for Mitch and the audience to figure out. I’d forgotten about that question for many years—in fact I haven’t watched City Slickers in ten years or so. A friend’s question, though, reminded me of the film.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife threw a fortieth birthday party for me with some of my best friends. It was a sweet night with family and friends, but eventually the night died down to only a few of the closest friends around my table. One of these friends asked me what I had learned at forty? Surprisingly, only one answer came up—I didn’t even have to think about it. Pursue friendship. 

The thing about life is that our lives are neither pure tragedy or pure comedy. They are unexpected and we simply do not know what our experience will be like. The hope of the gospel, however, tells us that God is working all things together for our good behind the ups and downs of the plotlines in our lives. The secret of life, then, is to learn how to live in this story we don’t control. The way to live this secret, I’m convinced, is through friendship. Friendship with our God, our children, our spouse, our neighbors, and others put in our path. It is the hard work of pursuing intimacy—of reading Scripture, prayer, bringing meals, cleaning our house to have folks over, and dealing with the annoyances of life together—that bridges the gaps in our lives. Intimacy with God grounds us in hope by reminding us of the author who is writing our stories. Our friends and family help us keep perspective in joy and struggle, and making space for new people adds deeper richness in our lives. Friendship is at the very core of redemption. It is the place we most clearly live out the gospel and the place where we find the hope we need by loving and being loved by others who are also trying to navigate the tension of the fallen world.

One of the best scenes in City Slickers comes on the cattle ride with Mitch and the two friends that came along with him. “Remember when we were kids?” one of them asks. “We thought we would be friends forever. It turned out we were right.” At a time when Mitch is questioning almost everything about his life, he realizes that goodness surrounds him. He is loved and he loves those around him. At forty, I feel like this is the secret I have learned.

This review was originally published on Church and State on Nov. 30, 2025. Republished here with the author’s permission.