Work Until God Retires You

What if God never intended us to retire?

One of my favorite moments of any gathering comes after the meal is over. Family and guests are enjoying dessert as the dinner winds down. After a good meal, people seem more willing to dive into deeper conversations; to ask questions that have been on their mind.

I had an experience with my own family and a group of close friends recently when one person brought up the topic of retirement. “When do you think people should retire?” It was not really a question about retirement. It was a question about whether God ever intended us to stop working simply because we reached a certain age.

Retirement has become one of the great goals of our culture. We work hard, save faithfully, count the years, and look forward to the day we no longer must work. We celebrate it with parties, vacations, and speeches about finally doing whatever we want. Most of us have accepted that idea without stopping to ask whether it is the picture Scripture paints for our lives.

I had my opinion on the subject, but I wanted to dig into God’s word and see what I could find. When we open the Bible, at the very beginning of Genesis, we find the story of Adam and Eve. Most of us could repeat the parts about the apple, the first sin, and the banishing from the garden, but when you dig deep into God’s creation of man, before sin entered the world, I found my answer.

God created work to be a blessing. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Genesis 2:15. I had to read the verse several times for it to sink in. God created work BEFORE sin entered the garden. Work was not a result of sin, but a blessing God gave us to be in partnership with Him. Work was part of God’s plan. That verse confirmed something I already believed.

God created us to build, care for others, and serve. Those things are not punishments. They are part of being made in His image.

I think we sometimes confuse the burden of work with the blessing of work. The burden is what wears us out. The blessing is that God allows us to spend our lives doing things that matter to Him and to other people.

I am not suggesting everyone should remain in the same career until the day they die. There comes a time when our bodies begin to slow down and certain responsibilities belong in younger hands. There is wisdom in recognizing those seasons. What I question is the attitude many take in our society. It has become commonplace to believe that once we no longer need to earn a paycheck, we no longer have a responsibility to keep serving. I have searched the scriptures, and I simply do not see that idea anywhere.

Not long ago I was reading an article by author and pastor Gary Thomas, who introduced me to the writings of Richard Baxter, a seventeenth-century pastor. Baxter wrote about what he called sloth, but he was not talking about someone who refused to work. He was warning against stepping away from useful work and meaningful responsibility while we still had the health, experience, and opportunity to serve others.

Most of us think retirement is the reward for a lifetime of work. Baxter saw it differently. He believed that if God gives us the ability to serve, He has also given us a reason to serve. Gary Thomas summarized Baxter’s thought this way: the very ability to serve is itself a call to serve. I agree.

There is a difference between making a living and living with a calling. Just because we no longer need a paycheck doesn’t mean God is finished with us. Financial independence may free us from needing an income, but it never frees us from loving our neighbor or serving the Lord. In fact, retirement may be the first season in life when many of us finally have the time to invest in people without the constant demands of building a career. Perhaps that is one of God’s purposes for those years.

Maybe He gives us more time to disciple a young couple, mentor someone just beginning a career, serve more faithfully at church, encourage a widow, visit someone who is lonely, or open our home to people who simply need community.

When I think back on my own life, I realize that some of the people who have shaped me lived by this example. They were the people who always seemed to have time. They invited us into their homes to share a meal. They asked questions. They listened carefully. They shared what God had taught them through years of both joy and disappointment. These were older friends who may have retired from earning a paycheck, but some of their greatest work had just begun.

Work changes from one season of life to another but serving never does. A young mother serves by raising children. A father serves by providing for his family. A teacher serves in a classroom. A business owner serves employees and customers. A grandmother serves by teaching her grandchildren to pray. A retired executive serves by investing in younger leaders.

The responsibilities may change, but the calling is the same. God never intended for His people to stop working, to stop serving.

I have watched good men and women step away from successful careers, not because they were no longer able to contribute, but because they believed they had reached the point where they no longer needed to work. There is nothing wrong with this, but my question would be, “What is next?”

At first, retirement seems everything they hoped it would be. There are trips to take, golf to play, grandchildren to visit, and projects around the house that have been waiting for years. There is finally time to do whatever they choose. For a time, it feels like freedom.

Then, slowly, something begins to change. The phone does not ring quite as often. Fewer people ask for their advice. The problems they once solved belong to someone else. The days become less structured, and little by little, the gifts they used to serve so many people begin to waste away. And sadly, the wasting of gifts is often accompanied by the wasting of the physical body. Losing purpose in life never has a happy outcome.

Decades ago, there was a top oil executive who lived across the street from our home. He worked tirelessly until one day he was ready to retire. He talked about his greatest days that were yet to come. Specifically, he wanted to sit on his front porch and rock the hours away, just enjoying the life he had built. Within a year, he unexpectedly passed away.

I have often wondered whether he had spent so many years living for retirement that, once he did, he struggled to find another purpose worth getting up for every morning. When we lose meaning, it takes a toll both mentally and physically.

Richard Baxter compared unused abilities to iron left sitting until it rusts. God did not give us experience, judgment, wisdom, and discernment so they could sit on a shelf during the final years of our lives. He gave them to us so we can be the tools He uses to reach others.

That does not mean our work will always stay the same. When we are young, much of our time is spent building careers, raising children, paying bills, and meeting responsibilities. Those are good and necessary things. But later in life, God often gives us a little time to breathe. Many view these years as the least productive, but I wonder if those years are to be the most fruitful.

The older I get, the more I believe one of the greatest gifts grandparents can leave their families is not a financial inheritance, although Scripture certainly encourages us to prepare wisely for those who come behind us. “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children” Proverbs 13:22. Paul expressed the same principle when he wrote, “Children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” 2 Corinthians 12:14.

Of course, none of us knows what tomorrow holds. Illness, disability, or unexpected hardship may one day require our children to help care for us, and there is no shame in that. Families are meant to love and care for one another. But as long as God gives us the health, strength, and opportunity to provide for ourselves, I believe we should do everything we can to remain a blessing to our children rather than intentionally becoming their financial responsibility. There is a difference between needing help and planning to need help.

Yet even greater than any financial inheritance we leave is the inheritance of example. Before our children inherit what we own, they watch how we live. They notice if we live our lives with purpose. They see if we practice hospitality by opening our homes to friends and neighbors. They watch to see what we cherish. Around the table they are learning something that cannot be taught in a classroom. They are learning what it looks like to grow older with faith. They are learning that serving God is not something we do during one season of life, but we serve Him until our last breath.

I want my grandchildren to remember grandparents who never stopped learning, never stopped growing, never stopped building, never stopped serving, and never stopped opening our home to others.

When it comes to work ethics there is no one I admire more than my husband. I am often amazed at the productivity he can accomplish in a single day. God has entrusted him with tremendous opportunities, and I believe it is because he has been faithful with what God has already placed in his hands.

I often hear my husband say during our prayers together, “God, these tasks sometimes seem too big. How will there be time? But, God, I know if You call, then You will provide, and I rest in You, knowing You will see it to the end.” Although his work carries tremendous responsibility, he will move heaven and earth to be present for his family. I know he prays that his family will know work was never the center of his life. Serving God in whatever way He calls is my husband’s motivation.

As each day passes, there will come a season when our strength begins to fade, and God tells us it is time to step aside from a particular role. There is grace in recognizing the seasons God has given us. But I say this fervently. Stepping aside from our current roles does not mean we stop working.

Billy Graham once said that he did not intend to retire until God retired him. I have always loved that statement because it reminds me that it should not be us who determines when our work is finished. It is God who makes this decision. Until He calls us home, we work for Him.

If we think we can stop working, we will rob ourselves of one of life’s greatest privileges -- the opportunity to keep investing in people.

The older I get, the less I think life is about reaching a finish line. I think it is about finishing faithfully. For one person, that may mean teaching a Sunday school class. For another, it may mean mentoring a young couple over breakfast once a month. It may mean reading Bible stories to grandchildren, writing notes of encouragement, serving on a nonprofit board, or inviting neighbors to dinner. None of those things earn a paycheck, but every one of them matters to the Kingdom of God.

That is one of the reasons I care so deeply about the table. Children learn far more than manners. They learn how adults treat one another. They hear stories of God’s faithfulness. They watch their parents’ welcome strangers, pray together, laugh together, and carry one another’s burdens. They watch grandparents who still have wisdom to pass along, and children learn what a faithful life looks like.

The table shapes the home. The home shapes families. Families shape society.

Maybe that is why I cannot find retirement anywhere in Genesis. From the beginning, God created men and women to cultivate, serve, teach, care for, and invest in others. What God asks us to do may change over time, but His purpose for us does not.

The table still needs setting. Young families still need encouragement. Grandchildren still need stories. Neighbors still need an invitation. The lonely still need a place where someone knows their name. There are still people who need the wisdom God has spent a lifetime teaching us.

One day, God will make it clear that my work here is finished. Until that time comes, I want to keep opening my home and serving the generations who come behind me. Then, when He finally calls me home, I pray I will hear the only retirement words that really matter: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Together with you,

Lisa Lou

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