Retirement:
An Opportunity to Serve God
By Randy
Alcorn
I appreciate John Piper’s view of retirement as an opportunity to serve
God in another season of life.
I thought about this the other day after playing tennis at an athletic
club and overhearing two retired men saying, “We’re not much use anymore, are
we?” They were joking, but only sort of. Clearly, they felt it was mostly true.
Our physical and mental abilities can and will decrease over time, but
may we as God’s children never feel useless. We can always pray, and we can
usually speak and mentor and reach out in the name of Jesus, and show the love
of Christ and the wisdom of having invested our lives in Him.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do [including
“retirement”], do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31).
What Happens When You Turn 65
By John Piper
Turning 65 in January has me all fired up to get busy. I am close enough
to the finish line that the face of Jesus is coming into sharper focus. This is
very exciting and makes me want to pick up the pace.
Of course, he is not the least impressed with frenzy. Nor is he pleased
with Boomer indolence. What his face says to me is: “I am your rest every day,
and there is good work to do every day till you’re home.”
One Great Thing
God has called me to this one great thing, and his face affirms it every
day: “With full courage, now (after 65)
as always, let Christ be magnified in your body, whether by life or by death”
(Philippians 1:20).
Live now to make much of Christ. Measure everything by this: Will it
help more people admire Jesus more intensely and treasure Jesus more deeply?
The Bible says, “The years of our
life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalms
90:10).
But of course, “My times are in
your hand” (Psalms 31:15).
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. We don’t live one day longer or
shorter than God appoints.
So at 65, I am still gagging at the pictures of leathery old sunbathers
on white shores and green links.
For fifteen years, I have thrown hundreds of senior mailings in the
recycle bag unopened. Not that I am opposed to saving $0.79 on lunch at Perkins.
Just don’t try to sell me heaven before I get there. There is too much hell
left to fight.
.
Old Versus Retired
.
Old Versus Retired
- Turning 65 has set me to pondering what
people have done in their later years.
- For example, I just received a copy of the
first major biography of Charles Hodge in over a century: Paul C. Gutjahr, Charles Hodge: Guardian of
American Orthodoxy (Oxford, 2011). On the first page, I read,
- When people reach their seventies, they
often think their work is done. Not so with Hodge. His last years were among
this most productive as he sat ensconced in his study, wielding his favorite
pen to compose literally thousands of manuscript pages, which would eventually
become his monumental Systematic Theology and his incisive What is
Darwinism? (vii)
- So I started poking around on the Internet.
Here’s some of what I found (for example, at www.museumofconceptualart.com/accomplished):
- At 65 Winston Churchill became Prime
Minister of England, and for the next five years led the Western world to
freedom.
- At 69 English writer and lexicographer
Samuel Johnson began his last major work, The Lives of the English Poets.
- At 69 Ronald Reagan became the oldest man
ever sworn in as President of the United States. He was reelected at 73.
- At 70 Benjamin Franklin helped draft the
Declaration of Independence.
- At 77 John Glenn became the oldest person
to go into space.
- At 77 Grandma Moses started painting.
- At 82 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe finished
writing his famous Faust.
- At 82 Winston Churchill wrote A
History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
- At 88 Michelangelo created the
architectural plans for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
- At 89 Albert Schweitzer ran a hospital in
Africa.
- At 89 Arthur Rubinstein performed one of
his greatest recitals in Carnegie Hall.
- At 93 Strom Thurmond, the longest-serving
senator in U.S. history, won reelection after promising not to run again at age
99.
- At 93 P.G. Wodehouse worked on his 97th
novel, got knighted, and died.
.
Dependent Till the End
.
Dependent Till the End
And don’t forget, if you are running this
marathon with Jesus, you have a great advantage. God has promised you: “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray
hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will
save” (Isaiah 46:4).
.
.
Nothing to be ashamed of here. We have been
dangling in the yoke of Jesus ever since he called us. At out peak, we were
totally dependent. So it will be to the end.
So, all you Boomers just breaking into Medicare, gird up your loins,
pick up your cane, head for the gym, and get fit for the last lap.
Fix your eyes on the Face at the finish line. There will plenty of time
for R and R in the Resurrection. For now, there is happy work to be done.
RELATED POSTS:
Thinking of Retirement as the Next Opportunity to Serve Christ
What Is The Role of
a Christian Grandfather or Grandmother?
PSALM 71A PRAYER IN OLD AGE
Randy Alcorn (@randyalcorn) is the author of over fifty books and the founder and director of Eternal
Perspective Ministries.
http://www.epm.org/blog/2011/Jun/3/retirement-opportunity-serve-god
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