4 Ways to Discover True Joy in Retirement
“Your retirement adventure starts here….”
So boasts the large-font headline of the website for Florida’s most luxurious retirement community. Glossy vignettes of retirement life slide across the screen: golfers posing on the kelly green of the groomed golf course, silver-haired men and women occupying the rows and rows of tennis and pickle ball courts, line-dancing seniors swaying to the music of a live band at an outdoor pool. The community’s hashtags “#retirementdreams, #keeplearning, and #keepgrowing punctuate every Facebook advertisement.
Is there anything wrong with moving to a picturesque retirement community and spending your days playing pickle ball, attending art classes, or learning chess? Not necessarily. After thirty-five to forty years of early morning wakeup calls and long days put in at the plant or office, there’s nothing wrong, especially as our bodies age and weary more easily, with taking more time to rest and enjoy an unscheduled life. In fact, it seems to be part of God’s design, part of acknowledging that God made us for rest as much as for work. God rested after he created the world, God built into our weekly rhythm an entire day to rest and remember that he is God. Surely it’s okay to take pleasure in leisurely days in our retirement years. But we should never believe a life of leisure alone will bring the deep joy and satisfaction we crave. Let’s consider four ways to discover true joy in retirement.
4 Ways to Discover Joy in Retirement
1. Remember that we never retire from our calling as Christ’s ambassadors.
While it is good to enjoy a little leisure in retirement years, we must remember that we never retire from our calling as Christ’s ambassadors. Sadly, some churches seem to buy into the cultural call to leisurely retirement and to the cultural condescension toward the aging: theologian J. I. Packer writes,
“Modern Western churches…behave as though spiritual gifts and ministry skills wither with age. But they don’t; what happens, rather, is that they atrophy with disuse.” (J.I. Packer, Finishing Our Course with Joy: Guidance from God for Engaging with Aging, 94).
To combat both the secular and the Christian condescension toward the aged, we need to revisit what the Bible says about aging and retirement.
The Bible hardly speaks of retirement at all, with the exception of the Levitical priests, who retire from temple duties at age fifty but seem to carry on other activities (Numbers 8:23-26). Scripture teaches that aging leads to a “heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12) and that older people are called to pass on this wisdom to the younger generation (see Titus 2:1-4). Psalm 92:14 reminds us that “the righteous shall bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.” As Sharon Betters and Susan Hunt explain, “This fruit does not depend on human achievement; it is other-worldly, spiritual, abundant, and eternal….” (Aging with Grace, 98). According to the Bible, then, we are called to enjoy and glorify God throughout our lives.
2. Surrender our demand for productivity.
The Western cultural idol of productivity presents one of the fiercest challenges in retirement. Arthur Brooks, writing for The Atlantic, reports that many people have told him, “retirement has been brutal: They feel unhappy, aimless, and bored. In search of—well, they’re not quite sure what—some have made bad choices, tanking their marriages…or making stupid business decisions they don’t think they would have made when they were still employed. One person told me, ‘Since I quit working, I feel like a stranger to myself’ (Arthur Brooks, “Why So Many People Are Unhappy in Retirement”).
Alice Fryling, spiritual director, recognizes the opportunity in decreased productivity:
“Another thing the Spirit reminds me, in the process of choosing life as I grow older, is that in this season, I can celebrate being more fruitful, even as I become less productive. Up until now, I have validated my life by the tasks I get done and the accomplishments I achieve. In other words, for better or for worse, I have focused on my productivity. Now, God is inviting me to focus more on fruitfulness in my life” (Aging Faithfully: The Holy Invitation of Growing Older, 9).
When we accept the limitations it imposes, aging bear many fruits of God’s love: the fruit of humility, the fruit of patience, and the fruit of empathy for others.
3. Accept loss with grace.
Along with the loss of productivity comes the loss of achievement and the acclaim that accompanies that achievement. My husband and I have many conversations about what it will be like when he retires and no longer experiences the joy and satisfaction of freeing a patient from chronic pain. My mother worked for years as a business owner in the computer contracting business, and she received many accolades as a women’s business owner in a male-dominated field. Retirement meant saying good-bye to ongoing achievement and accolades. As Arthur Brooks bluntly states,
“Unless you keel over in the prime of life, your victories will fade, your skills will decline, and life’s problems will intrude. If you try to hang on to glory, or lash out when it fades, it will squander your victories and mark an unhappy end to your journey….Plan to spend the last part of your life serving others, loving your family and friends, and being a good example to those still in the first three stages of their own hero’s journey.”
As Christians, we can more humbly accept the losses we face in retirement, because we know our identity as the beloved children of God.
4. Serve the Lord in the capacities we are allowed.
For Christians, it may also be easier to follow Brooks’ counsel to “spend the last part of [our] life serving others….” Given our lifelong calling to enjoy and glorify God, it should not surprise us to learn that studies show the happiest senior adults have discovered a deep sense of meaning and purpose. Christians do not have to search for that meaning and purpose; it is defined for us over and over in Scripture. 2 Corinthians 5:20 states our calling clearly:
“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Whatever we do, we are always called to share the good news of the gospel with others.
As we pursue leisure activities like painting or pickle ball, we can come alongside the recently widowed woman and offer a listening ear, or we can be the one who always stays behind to put up the equipment. If we are physically able, we can serve others with the strength given us: hauling our neighbor’s trashcan to and from the street, sewing baby blankets for the pregnancy center, or taking meals to the sick and recovering. My mother traded in her professional achievements for hosting weeklong camps for grandchildren and visiting the prison with her church ministry team. Physically frail members of our church have continued to serve by praying for others, by writing letters to those who need wisdom and hope, and by simply offering a listening ear and an encouraging word.
In a world that values productivity and achievement, retirement presents many challenges. As people of hope who embrace aging and know our God-given purpose, we have every reason to live the retirement adventure that will yield the deepest joy: loving God and loving others in every season of life.
How about you? What challenges have you and/or your friends or spouse faced in retirement? What gives you joy and a sense of purpose? Leave a comment, or hit reply and message me directly.
Further Resources: Books and Articles on Retirement and Aging
Jeff Haanen, An Uncommon Guide to Retirement: Finding God’s Purpose for the Next Season of Life, Moody, 2019.
Haanen, former pastor and missionary who now works in the field of Faith and Work, offers a comprehensive guide to all of the issues of retirement, counseling us to plan and pray for it well before our last day at work.
J.I. Packer, Finishing Our Course with Joy: Guidance from God for Engaging with Aging, Crossway, 2014.
Theologian J.I. Packer, who was 87 when he wrote this book, calls us to “Live for God one day at a time” and to make our “last lap a sprint.”
Arthur Brooks, “Why So Many People Are Unhappy in Retirement,”The Atlantic. Arthur Brooks, secular writer, writes powerfully about the discontent many people experience in retirement.
Alice Fryling, Alice Fryling, Aging Faithfully: The Holy Invitation of Growing Older Navpress, 2021.
Fryling, a spiritual director, discusses many opportunities of aging and encourages us to grow closer to God as we age.
Sharon Betters and Susan Hunt, Aging with Grace: Flourishing in an Anti-Aging Culture Crossway, 2020
Sharon Betters and Susan Hunt offer a biblical perspective on aging, weaving biblical wisdom with stories of older people who are “flourishing in an anti-aging culture.”
