Retirement Planning

I believe that most Christians who “give my life to Christ” know that they have been given a unique purpose for their life.  Some wrestle with finding that purpose.  Some wrestle --- as I did --- with the parable of the talents: Am I using all the blessings God gave me to the maximum extent, to be who He created me to be?  But I believe that in general most Christians don’t wrestle very hard; not seeing a clear goal or victory in sight, they “just do the best I can”.  They accept the general statement “I try to be a good person,” as being good enough.  I might say they trust in God’s mercy, but they don’t really take the time to know Him, or His mercy.

The Gospels, the key lessons Jesus wanted to teach us and so the Holy Spirit-inspired authors wrote, only cover 10% of Jesus’ life, his last three years.  The other years were spent fulfilling His unique EARTHLY PURPOSE, as the son of Mary and Joseph.  Oh, He did grow in spiritual purpose also --- He had to be about His Father’s will in the temple --- but it was in His latter years, when He reached full maturity and completed His earthly purposes and began preaching and teaching a focus on ETERNAL LIFE, that are recorded as MOST important time in the Gospels.  In our lives, we call those latter years of our life a “retirement” from our key earthly purposes.  Why don’t we treat those years with the same importance that Jesus did?

It seems to me that many people treat retirement years as a time to get the most out of this earth before we die: the most experiences, the most enjoyment we can buy.  We save money for 90% of our life so we can spend it in that last 10%, spend it without worry.  Or some save so they can leave it to their children, so they don’t have to save (why not?).  They equate money with happiness; they want to end their life happy --- yet, strangely, will admit that money cannot buy happiness.  And, equally strangely, they will admit they can’t take the money with them, nor will they take the earthly experiences and enjoyments.  Christians have a large focus on preparing for retirement from their earthly obligations, but --- strangely, to my mind --- spend little time focusing on their heavenly eternal obligations.

Jesus spent the years, when He retired from His earthly obligations, focused on His heavenly obligations.  He lived out His retirement years focused on loving God and loving neighbor, to the best of His abilities.  And He attained heaven.  This was His example, so important it was recorded in great detail, on how we should live our retirement years.  Retirement years aren’t meant for closing down our earthly years with some kind of well-deserved reward, but for planning our heavenly years, the eternal reward for our lives.  Even as our youth was spent gaining strength and education to maximize the results of our earthly purposes, our retirement years’ new focus is meant to maximize the results of our heavenly life.  The final summation of who we become, spiritually, during this earthly life defines who we will become in our heavenly life.  That life will be our ultimate experience and enjoyment, far better than anything we can experience here.

So why not plan to maximize that?  As our earthly obligations wind down --- whether successfully or not --- why not focus on our spiritual obligations?

As Christians, we recognize we are body and spirit.  With Baptism’s grace, our “hearts” have both earthly and heavenly connections.  We’re supposed to grow both those connections, but the earthly connections are thrust upon us; the heavenly connections grow with our deliberate focus, they are not as forcefully given or noticed as our earthly experiences, but they are given.  The Church, the Sacraments, and the Bible are all like crutches to help our spiritual walk, until we can walk and run on our own.  We can always fall back on them, but when our hearts become focused on grace, on God’s will for us, we can go to the author of those supports directly.

Love God, and love your neighbor.  Remember them as you live your earthly purposes; you are not alone here on this earth.  But put a new focus on those words, make them your life’s focus, and you will be living your retirement years to their fullest, and with optimum planning for your eternal future.

In a class I’m taking, we recently spoke about the crises --- critical changes --- which occur in our lives, and how long it took to recover from the shock.  It varied from person to person, whether the death of a loved one, divorce, financial loss, or some other event took the longest to recover from.  No one mentioned aloud, however, what I wrote, nor did I.  I wrote that my death to self was the crisis which absorbed the longest period in my life, and still does.  “Putting on the mind of Christ” so “it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” is no easy change in our life.

No one ever said preparing for eternal life was easy.  God Himself had to come to show us the way.  It just sounds easy, but you have to work at it.  I’ve found it helps if you get to know Him, and can talk it over with Him.  If you learn to listen, He’ll show you the way.  If you can die to self, He’ll fill your heart with His heart.  And you’ll not look back with any regrets over earthly experiences you had or didn’t have, but look forward to future experiences with Him

My Jesus, I trust in You.