Don't Waste Your Life in Retirement

Retired woman walking with a cane

Retirement is perhaps one of the most dreaded words for the aging people. It creates fears and insecurities in the whole spectrum of life e.g. health and finances. We hear stories about people dropping dead within 5-10 years after retirement.  I understand retired people do feel tremendous stress when they are cut off from an extremely important part of their lives. Most often the case their identity is governed by their title at work.  

To some people think of "retirement" meant dropping out of the workforce entirely to pursue leisure or rest.

In fact, the dictionary defines the word "retire" as "1.) To withdraw, as for rest or seclusion, 2) To go to bed, 3) To withdraw from one's occupation, business, or office; stop working. 4) To fall back or retreat, as from battle. 5) To move back or away; recede."

Personally to me retirement is meant just that "re-tire"--"to put on a new set of tires" that I can travel more through life and do more. I find that my life in retirement is not boring at all; not a life of lonesomeness. In fact I find retirement as an enriching experience--it opens me new vistas of challenges and yields new learning opportunities. I have more time to pursue my interests, to develop my skills in computing in the area of blogging and in desktop publishing, and revive my dormant and rusty skills in chess.

Let us consider John Piper's exhortation to the young graduates of his Bethlehem College & Seminary, "Don't waste your life!"

"It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more than the possibility of taking this onetime gift of life and wasting it. Every morning when I walked into the kitchen as a boy I saw hanging on the wall the plaque that now hangs in my living room: 'Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.' And now I am almost 58, and the river of life is spilling over the falls of my days with tremendous speed. More and more I smell eternity. And oh, how I want to use my life well. It is so short and so fragile and so final. You get one chance to live your life. And then the judgment. I speak as a father who has children your age, and I am jealous with Jesus that they and you not waste your life." ("Don't Waste Your Life," from December 29, 2003).

We should pray like the Psalmist's prayer: "So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come." (Psalm 71:18)

The excellent way for us retirees NOT to waste our lives in retirement and still can be useful to God…is by proclaiming the GOSPEL for the present and coming generations. This present generation and the upcoming generations should know God and embrace Him and savor a relationship with Him through our Lord Jesus Christ. We can make God known to them by way of our example in speech, in deed, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. We are not to be ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

 
So fellow retirees don't waste your life in retirement.