Nearing Home - Billy Graham [9]
TRANSITIONING TO RETIREMENT
Many people could tell similar stories. The old saying is still true: the grass is always greener on the other side. Retirement is quite different from a two-week vacation, and change is an inevitable part of life, no matter how young or old we are.
As the years pass we move from childhood to adolescence, then on to young adulthood and a career, probably followed by marriage and children and—eventually—the empty nest. Some of life’s transitions are predictable although others may catch us by surprise.
Life is full of changes, but one of the greatest comes with retirement. Many look forward to it; others dread it. Sooner or later almost everyone who lives long enough will experience it. “I can’t wait until I retire,” a man in his early sixties wrote me not long ago—something I have heard hundreds of times over the years. Another told me, “My wife and I are still in our thirties, and our greatest ambition is to be able to retire when I hit fifty.” In contrast someone said to me recently, “I’m dreading retirement. The company policy has mandatory retirement, and I’ll have to step aside in a few years. I enjoy my work, and I can’t imagine my life without it.”
Reactions are different because people are different; however, for most people the end of the working years is truly a watershed event—a major milestone, marking not only the end of their careers but also the beginning of their latter years. Retirement is only one of the changes most of us will encounter as we grow older, but it is a huge one. Even if our spouses haven’t worked outside the home, the transition may be just as jarring for them as it is for us.
We may picture the years following retirement as a time of rest and relaxation, and to some extent it is true. But they have another side to them: like every other stage of life, our latter years will be filled with repeated changes and transitions. The decision to retire . . . adjusting to a different daily routine . . . declining health as the years pass . . . the loss of a spouse . . . the need to move or downsize . . . increasing dependence on others—these and other events during our retirement years bring their own difficulties and adjustments.
And yet many people are ill-prepared for the realities of retirement, either viewing it unrealistically through rose-tinted glasses or refusing to think about it at all. “I never thought much about retiring or growing older,” a retired businessman confessed to me once. “If I’d run my business with as little advance planning as I gave to my retirement years,” he added, “I’d have gone bankrupt.” “I thought I was prepared for my senior years,” a woman wrote me. “As a single professional woman, I’d devoted a great deal of attention to being certain I’d be financially secure. But now I’m realizing I’m totally unprepared for the emotional and spiritual challenges I’m facing. Financial security isn’t the whole story, I’ve discovered—not at all.”
RETIREMENT AND THE BIBLE
Work is a part of God’s plan for our lives. Work is not something we do just to put food on the table; it is one of the major ways God has given us to bring glory to Him. The writer of Ecclesiastes declared, “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God” (2:24). Paul said, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
For most of His life, Jesus worked with His hands. “Isn’t this the carpenter?” some of His enemies sneered, assuming (incorrectly) that an ordinary occupation such as carpentry surely disqualified Him from being the Messiah (Mark 6:3).