Retirement: Looking ahead at the American Dream?
Retirement: Your search for meaning, calling and your legacy in your dream of retirement!
Even if many years away from “Retirement” or “Refirement”…never too soon to seek a vision from the Lord for now. We never know when our brief time on this earth will end. We either live for the DOT or the Line_______________ as Randy Alcorn states in his book, “Heaven”. And that influences our decision making now, but has tremendous results when our brief stay on this earth has ended.
The Best is Yet to Come!
“Are the best days of your life in front of you? Our outlook on life-and our answer to that question-can change with time. When we’re younger, we look ahead. Once we’ve grown older, we yearn for the past. But when we walk with God, whatever our age, the best is yet to come!
From Stand Strong. 365 Devotions For Men By Men. Our Daily Bread. January 3rd. James Banks
Bob Buford in his book, Finishing Well.
Let’s Do Lunch
Visualize this. You and I are having lunch at your favorite place. It’s comfortable, a good place for going to talk. You’ve come to a point in your life where you’re asking. What now? What’s next? You feel a new season in the air. Thinking about retirement. It might be that you have recently lost a spouse. I have. Naomi. She’s with the Lord in Heaven now. That’s another story.
Or you may be approaching retirement or in early retirement…have you discerned what the Lord may be calling you to do…
Do you want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant”? What does that mean to you?
We all want to finish life well. What does that mean to you?
If you are with someone…just ask:
We are all in different seasons of life.
Do you have a dream? Tim Collins calls it a BHAG-“Big Hairy audacious Goal’
What causes you to get up each morning with renewed enthusiasm for the day?
Do you have a vision from the Lord for your retirement?
Using your gifts, strengths and abilities for the Lord?
A good book to help you in Retirement is Visioneering by Andy Stanley.
Andy states that “Visioneering is the course one follows to make dreams a reality. It is the process whereby ideas and convictions take on substance.” As Christians we want to honor God in all we do. Andy further states, “Honoring God involves discovering his picture or vision of what our lives could and should be.” He further states that “missing out on God’s plan for our lives must be the greatest tragedy this side of eternity.”
We all have great ideas for our future as we begin our lives. For most people, reality sets in and we lose or don’t even know our purpose for being on this earth.
Even our good ideas…we can make happen, but it tales a lot of hard work and if we are successful, we get the credit. We can spend a lot of time and energy pursuing our good ideas and dreams…and in the process lose our way…family and relationships can and may suffer. On the other hand, Andy states that a divine vision is limited only by God’s potential and resources and that means anything is possible. If it is just a good idea, you have to make it happen. When God gives you a vision, there’s a sense in which you stand back and watch it happen. And when it does, God gets the glory.
For most or a lot of us, we lose the vision along the way. Andy gives some good wisdom on this subject and is worth pursuing.
Put Your Retirement Dream to the Test
John Maxwell in his book, Put Your Dream To The Test. Has some good ideas and offers 10 questions to help you see your dream and seize it.
Finishing Well by Bob Buford
Reflections and Conversations on Purpose in your retirement
Visioneering by Andy Stanley
Andy Stanley’s book, Visioneering, offers helpful insights. He describes visioneering as the path that turns dreams into reality—a process where ideas and convictions take on substance. As Christians, we strive to honor God in everything we do. Andy reminds us: “Honoring God means discovering his vision for what our lives could and should be.” Missing out on God’s plan, he says, “must be the greatest tragedy this side of eternity.”
Put your retirement dream to the test
John Maxwell’s book, Put Your Dream To The Test, also offers practical tools—including ten questions designed to help clarify and pursue your dream. Maxwell believes, “A dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do all you can to achieve it.”
Discover Your Destiny. Let God Use You Like He Made You. By Tony Evans
“When your life is filled with purpose, you measure what you have done according to what you were created to do.”
“God has already completed a spiritual blueprint of what you are to physically accomplish.”
Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper
“What is the one passion of your life that makes everything else look like rubbish in comparison? Oh, that God would help me waken in you a single passion for a single great reality that would unleash you, and set you free from small dreams, and send you, for t he glory of Christ, into all the spheres of secular life and to all the peoples of the earth.”
Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives – Ravi Zacharias
At the heart of this book lies the conviction that God’s intentional design and involvement in our lives gives each person a unique purpose. By His sovereign will, we exist with a meaning crafted for us, and He will guide us until the day we meet Him and fully understand ourselves.
The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns
“God has created each of us with a unique contribution to make in our world and our times. No other person has our same abilities, motivations, network of friends and relationships, perspectives, ideas, or experiences. When we, like misplaced puzzle pieces, fail to show up, the overall picture is diminished.” Richard Stearns: President of World Vision U.S.
In His Footsteps My Pathway.
As Roy Lessin states in his June 21st devotion, “Seasons”, in His Footsteps My Pathway, “Within God’s will for your life there will be seasons when certain opportunities, ministries, circumstances, and relationships move in or out of your life, like the seasons of the year that change around you.
We all have options…even in our retirement!
Truly retire as the world tells us or get refired...Change jobs, start a company, serve on a company board, volunteer at your favorite charity or church, parish…or spend your time living in the DOT as Randy Alcorn says or Living for the Line ._________________________________________________
What’s your next step in your retirement planning?
Do you really want to retire?
When the time is right, the Lord will make it happen..
Take a quick look at how God has made you.
God’s loving design for you. Your body, mind, passion and prior experiences are and have been carefully designed by God. You are special, unique and have a special role in God’s creation. Embrace your unique journey, the journey of a lifetime! You are God’s special creation, designed with love and purpose. Embrace your unique journey,…
More questions in your retirement or search for meaning quest?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.“
Proverbs 3:5-6 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Best is Yet to Come!
“Are the best days of your life in front of you? Our outlook on life-and our answer to that question-can change with time. When we’re younger, we look ahead. Once we’ve grown older, we yearn for the past. But when we walk with God, whatever our age, the best is yet to come!
From Stand Strong. 365 Devotions For Men By Men. Our Daily Bread. January 3rd. James Banks
Don’t we all want to finish well and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant”?
Just a few questions you may want to ask yourself:
What is God calling me to do? Have I asked Him?
