Nearing Home - Billy Graham [16]
“In the eyes of most of my colleagues, I’m completely retired,” he told me several years after resigning his positions, “but in reality I’ve never been busier. What they don’t understand is that I retired solely because I felt God was calling me to use my experience in a new way, which is what I’ve done. And these have been the most exciting years of my life.” Now he travels all over the world advising hospitals and clinics in less-developed countries on how they can meet the medical needs of their people more effectively. He also writes regularly, using his postretirement experiences to urge doctors and other medical personnel to volunteer their services to those in need. Much of his work is carried on through Samaritan’s Purse.
Far different is the story I heard some years ago about another man. An astute businessman with an impressive record of success, he was hired by a large but languishing company to become its president while in his early fifties. Within a few years he had turned the business around, not only reversing its fortunes but overseeing its expansion into a number of other countries. Stories of his success as an executive appeared regularly in business journals, and his advice on economic matters was eagerly sought by business groups and government agencies. In accordance with his company’s rules, he retired at age sixty-eight, staying on for a brief time as an advisor to the company’s new president but otherwise no longer involved in its affairs.
“I was totally unprepared for retirement,” he confessed later. “I’d been too busy to bother with any hobbies other than the occasional round of golf, which was always business related anyway. The company had been my life, but after I drove away from the office for the last time, they didn’t even call me. We moved, and for a year or so I kept myself occupied building our dream home, but once it was finished I didn’t know what to do next. Now I play golf almost every day, not because I particularly love it but because I can’t think of anything else to do. My wife says I’m depressed, but she doesn’t understand how useless I feel. I hate being retired.”
Admittedly you may not be a highly skilled neurosurgeon or a major corporate executive; very few of us are. But the contrast between these two individuals points to a very important lesson we all need to learn about our retirement years: the best time to prepare for them is before they happen. Beyond that, however, is an even more important lesson: No matter who we are, retirement presents us with two choices. Either we can use it to indulge ourselves, or we can use it to make an impact on the lives of others. In other words, the choice we face is between empty self-indulgence and meaningful activity.
Take the retired business executive I profiled previously. I strongly suspect that at least a dozen nonprofit social service agencies in his community could have used his business expertise to help themselves become more effective. They would have loved to have him volunteer to assist them—but he never did.
DETERMINING THE GOAL
Does this mean it is wrong to relax and enjoy life during our retirement years? No, not at all; to say this would be to say that God doesn’t want us to ever enjoy the good things He gives us—which isn’t true. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all” (11:8). The apostle Paul repeated the Old Testament’s command for children to honor their parents, so that “you may enjoy long life on the earth” (Ephesians 6:3). God knows that we need rest and exercise and relaxation; after a grueling period of ministry, Jesus urged His disciples to “come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31).
But if this is all we do—if our only goals during our retirement years are to enjoy life and have as good a time as possible—then we may well have fallen into the trap of empty,