Retire or Re-tire

Retirement

A vast number of good folk dread the very word ‘retirement’. It brings visions of boredom, poverty, and all sorts of things to the minds of many. There is no real anticipation or excitement – just a resigned dread that, at the prescribed age, the world would throw them onto the ‘grey’ scrap heap; no longer loved and no longer needed – a drain upon society.

So, you can imagine my pleasure and surprise seeing this on FB - “I pray for those thinking of retiring . . that God will give you 4 new tires . . . new strength, new vision, new ministries, new life.”  Someone called “Eagle Eyes” posted it – he doesn’t leave his real name. What a great play on words. Of course, it wouldn’t have occurred to me because we spell “Tires” in this sense as “Tyres” – don’t ask me why America changed that – one of many differences in our use of English. (I am married to an American lady) Seriously though, this is exactly what happened to me when I finally took the plunge and ‘retired’. I put it like this because now I can look back and ask whenever I found time to work?

In the sense meant by the writer, I did re-tire. I left behind my old way of progress and exchanged it for a new way. I had been a Christian for many years but retirement meant that I could go full time into whatever work the Lord had for me. In the process, the Lord had to get rid of a lot of baggage, like “religion”, and exchange it for faith.

Actually, the Lord gave me new strength; strength for a lot of travel and a lot of ministry time spent on my feet or bending, kneeling over someone in prayer. It was amazing really how the Lord gave what we learned was, “supernatural strength for the moment”. In other words, He gave us all sufficient strength and stamina to complete all out trips with often very hectic schedules – like 7 meetings in one day – starting at 9.00a.m. and ending around 01:00a.m next day. We didn’t do that very often !!

We all thought we had an agreed vision, but when the Lord gives us visions, He very often allows it to sink in before expanding it into a new vision, far larger than the original, and the full version of the original. It’s like He gives you a taster before the main course.

From the vision came new ministries, ministries we had not even considered and which, had they not been birthed ‘on the run’ or ‘in the field’, we would have laughed at as being way way way beyond our capabilities and dreams.

And so, as I discovered quite slowly, the Lord introduced me into a new life. Retirement is somehow so very different from expectations. We expect to do much less, and indeed we are able to slow right down and do much less – if we want to do so. However, we can also do so much more too, but this time it is so much more of our own choosing. That is important. We can now do that which perhaps we have wanted to do but have never had the time to do before we retired.

Please believe me, retirement isn’t all that it’s either cracked up to be nor what it is put down to be either. Retirement is, for all of us, the greatest opportunity of our lives. In the words of Eagle Eyes, God really does re-tire us. With our permission, He gives us a whole new outlook – sometimes a new career as well. I didn’t do any real mission work for God until I retired because I had neither the time nor particularly the inclination. Now? I wouldn’t change anything God has done in my life these past 4 to 5 years.

Will you let God re-tire you?