Holy Retirement

I have been blessed and exceptionally fortunate that I was able to retire in my mid-forties. It was not without great effort, and was by no means a foregone conclusion. Yet, by age forty-five or so, I was able to transition to a new phase of life that most leaders only reach in their sixties or seventies. Some never get there.

But here's the thing. I never stopped working. In fact, I don't know that any of my colleagues or friends even noticed that anything externally had changed. My days were, and remain, full of meaningful and sometimes taxing work. I still have bills to pay, and I didn't move to the tropics. So, what is this "retirement" I speak of?

I stopped working for me. I started working for Him.

When most people think of retirement, the reality is that ease and leisure are rarely goals that bring happiness. In fact, after a lifetime of hard work, it would be unnatural and unhealthy to slip into a life of unstructured idleness. Sure, that sounds great on those days when we are inundated with project tasks and personnel drama. However, a fulfilling "retirement" does not look like a multi-decade version of Ferris Bueller's day off. Finding ourselves with lots of resources, unstructured time, and an unclear purpose is a recipe for dysfunction, not happiness.

No. The promise of unlimited leisure is not what we're actually looking forward to decades from now. In practice, you'll likely still (hopefully) keep yourself quite busy anyway.

On those days when we when find ourselves dreaming of "retirement" we are actually seeking relief from things like the fear of scarcity, the battle for status, the need to prove ourselves in competition with others, and the sense that much of our life and time is "not our own" and out of our control.

The good news is that we do not need to leave work behind in order to be free from these things. This is what "holy retirement" offers.

We can work free from fear of scarcity the more we trust that God will give us precisely what need – and let go of demanding what we want. The drive for status begins to melt when we notice that Christ paid no mind to titles – quite the opposite. We're freed from the need to prove ourselves in competition with others as we develop the faith that our infinite worth was fixed at the moment of our creation – and isn't determined by comparison. The desire to be the master of our time and activity becomes a little silly when we accept that He is the Master Builder, and whether CEO or janitor, we are but the workers. This is holy retirement.

To see "retirement" as something that can only happen once we have enough resources and control is an unfulfilling fantasy. As an executive coach, I know people who have successfully "retired" at thirty or forty, even though they will work for many more decades. I've also known long retired executives who are still chasing what the world cannot give – and the peace that forever eludes them.

You can retire now. The first step is coming to a greater understanding of Who we work for, and to what end. The truth is that this world is not our home. Holy retirement allows us to labor here in peace and hope, but never without effort. The rest our hearts truly seek is not a time or place. It's a Person.

Check out my latest book: Leading Conflict: How To Fight at Work.

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