I have now reached the stage where people I know are "retiring" and people with whom I associate discuss their plans for retirement. It's a real oddity.
The concept of retirement, of course, is very new. It really arose only in the last century (the 1900s) and primarily in the last half of that century. Prior to that, no one retired who could physically remain active. People lived all of their lives, not just the first 65 years or so.
How do we look at this new idea?
Certainly, there is much to be said for not working any more. We would love to be able to sleep in and play golf and do such things rather than go to a job. Sometimes, our jobs are physically too demanding for us when we are older and we feel forced to retire, but sometimes our jobs are just kind of annoying. We would love to get out of having to go do them every day.
On the other hand, there is certainly no reason to retire from anything else. Too often, our entire lives are filled with our work and, when we retire, we find ourselves at loose ends. The statistics on how quickly men die after retirement are frightening and are usually tied to the fact that a man without anything to do is, in a real sense, no longer a man at all. Men were made to work and designed to work and, somehow, just aren't the same with nothing to do.
God did not design us for retirement but for work. If we are no longer to work for our income, then we need some other work to do. We need to be active every day, doing something worthwhile. We need to get up (not sleep all day) and get out (not sit at our computers all day). We need to do work of some kind. Some men are good with their hands and fix up their homes (and the homes of their children) during their retirement. Some men are good with gardens and keep the grounds around their homes and grow food to share with friends and family.
The very first command given to a man was to work, to take care of God's creation (the Garden). We were never designed to sit idly while others do all the work.
Thinking of retirement entails many things, but it must entail work. We are not "retiring" from everything, but only from our jobs. We should never retire from our work.
The concept of retirement, of course, is very new. It really arose only in the last century (the 1900s) and primarily in the last half of that century. Prior to that, no one retired who could physically remain active. People lived all of their lives, not just the first 65 years or so.
How do we look at this new idea?
Certainly, there is much to be said for not working any more. We would love to be able to sleep in and play golf and do such things rather than go to a job. Sometimes, our jobs are physically too demanding for us when we are older and we feel forced to retire, but sometimes our jobs are just kind of annoying. We would love to get out of having to go do them every day.
On the other hand, there is certainly no reason to retire from anything else. Too often, our entire lives are filled with our work and, when we retire, we find ourselves at loose ends. The statistics on how quickly men die after retirement are frightening and are usually tied to the fact that a man without anything to do is, in a real sense, no longer a man at all. Men were made to work and designed to work and, somehow, just aren't the same with nothing to do.
God did not design us for retirement but for work. If we are no longer to work for our income, then we need some other work to do. We need to be active every day, doing something worthwhile. We need to get up (not sleep all day) and get out (not sit at our computers all day). We need to do work of some kind. Some men are good with their hands and fix up their homes (and the homes of their children) during their retirement. Some men are good with gardens and keep the grounds around their homes and grow food to share with friends and family.
The very first command given to a man was to work, to take care of God's creation (the Garden). We were never designed to sit idly while others do all the work.
Thinking of retirement entails many things, but it must entail work. We are not "retiring" from everything, but only from our jobs. We should never retire from our work.
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