What does retirement mean to me in 2014?
Our conversation this week in Fellowship of the King, a group of six men that meet weekly from 6::30 AM for an hour, was "retirement" and ministry. We've been reading Larry Crabbe's Men of Courage. Good food for thought in chapters which contrast "recipe" discipleship to "transformational" change. We have noticed that our lives seem to shorten the older we get, just because they do. I will be 70 this summer and expect to be nearing, if not in, the last decade of my life. Should be a lively time, with all the changes going on in the world. Like many, I expect to be persecuted for my orthodox faith. Don't you? But what shall we do this side of the veil?
The question becomes, how will I (you?) spend the next ten years? It's the bell lap. Will we run the race set out for us or will we "crowd please" or, worse, keep our head down as the tsunami of change hits our lives. I believe this to be a Gethsemane moment for all of us who love the Lord and are called to His purpose. We may truly get an opportunity to take up our cross and follow Him, unless we decide to run or hide. We will be given the choice, and we should know by now that He only expects us to be perfect, and that means putting on Christ and dying to self. Nothing else will work.
I've been doing prison ministry for the last decade and love it. I've been doing men for the last fifteen years and love that work, too. On March 31 I terminated our company's registration as an investment adviser and for the first time since the office was closed in September, 2012, I feel I can plan the next decade afresh. Clean slate.
Retirement, for me, will be to enter fully into Kairos, "God's time". I will recruit other volunteers to serve in Colorado prisons and work with men to coax them away from the sloth that deprives them of their spiritual heritage in Christ. My mission field is multi-denominational, because the church is splintered. May God give me the discernment to find and do His will every day wherever I find myself. May it please God to keep me in His grip, for without Him I can do nothing.
The question becomes, how will I (you?) spend the next ten years? It's the bell lap. Will we run the race set out for us or will we "crowd please" or, worse, keep our head down as the tsunami of change hits our lives. I believe this to be a Gethsemane moment for all of us who love the Lord and are called to His purpose. We may truly get an opportunity to take up our cross and follow Him, unless we decide to run or hide. We will be given the choice, and we should know by now that He only expects us to be perfect, and that means putting on Christ and dying to self. Nothing else will work.
I've been doing prison ministry for the last decade and love it. I've been doing men for the last fifteen years and love that work, too. On March 31 I terminated our company's registration as an investment adviser and for the first time since the office was closed in September, 2012, I feel I can plan the next decade afresh. Clean slate.
Retirement, for me, will be to enter fully into Kairos, "God's time". I will recruit other volunteers to serve in Colorado prisons and work with men to coax them away from the sloth that deprives them of their spiritual heritage in Christ. My mission field is multi-denominational, because the church is splintered. May God give me the discernment to find and do His will every day wherever I find myself. May it please God to keep me in His grip, for without Him I can do nothing.
posted by Unknown @ 8:23 AM
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