Retirement?

And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive . . .  And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. Joshua 14:10-11

After residency, when I first officially entered the work force and began planning for retirement, I was asked by a financial planner when I wanted to retire. I’m pretty sure I said I wanted to retire in my early 50s. I wanted to be able to enjoy my retirement before I was decrepit, and 50 sounded so old. Now, in my early 50s, the idea of retirement is absurd. I’m in better shape now than I was 10 years ago, and I’ve just still got so much to do. I can’t imagine stopping the work that I believe God wants me to do.

I’ve got good inspiration. Watching my parents, who’re in their 80s, makes me look at retirement differently. My dad – officially retired from the pulpit – still preaches and teaches regularly. My mom – officially retired from teaching – still substitutes and organizes neighborhood Bible studies. Though they may have changed their official employment status, neither of them has quit doing what God has put them on this Earth to do.

This, I think, is the tone of today’s passage, in which Caleb and Joshua reminisced about the past. Forty-five years prior, those two were sent by Moses to spy out the promised land. Now, they were conquering it. At age 85, Caleb could look back and see that he’d followed God all those years. His mission hadn’t changed, and his intensity hadn’t waned. He was still energized to do the work he felt God put him on Earth to do.

Back in my late 20s, I considered retirement to be my me-time – a time in life when I stopped working and did all the stuff I wanted. I was still in a mindset of living for myself. Well, living for myself led to my drug addiction and all it’s misery. In recovery, I’m learning to adopt a different mindset. I find joy now, not in living only for me, but in doing the work I feel God has put me on this Earth to do. I’ve experienced a tremendous satisfaction in finding my purposed and place in the world, and I have no intention of hanging that up so that I can return to a life of living only for myself. I will eventually change my official employment status, but like my parents and like Caleb, I hope I never get to a time in life when I stop seeking and doing God’s will.