“What will a great day look like in retirement?”
If you’re approaching retirement, people might be asking you for an answer to this question.
If you’re living in retirement, you might be evaluating your answer to this question.
Your first answer might be dreaming of everything you could fit into one spectacular day. Or your answer might be that doing nothing sounds blissful after the intensity of career.
Retirement gives you freedom to choose how to spend your days, but it involves stewardship as well. The Encore is an opportunity to answer the question, “What does God want to accomplish through me in the time He’s given me?”
Busyness, Idleness, and Stewardship
Two extremes can creep into how you spend your time in retirement: busyness or idleness. Some people fill their calendars with activity, doing “everything I didn’t have time for when I was working.” Others may look forward to “downtime” since they don’t have to work anymore.
Frenetic busyness and sedentary idleness are two sides of the same coin: placing your preferences as the top priority. One fills the calendar, the other leaves it empty.
Stewardship begins with understanding that time has never been yours. All time is God’s, and the time you have from Him is a gift! People who steward their time have learned to number their days (Psalm 90:12) and use their time wisely (Ephesians 5:16).
Stewardship means you know you can’t do everything and shouldn’t do everything. Instead, wise stewardship means evaluating our time, our calendar, and our priorities. We are asking God, “How and where do you want me to invest my time?”
Be Watchful, Get Ready!
The Encore of life is an opportunity to recalibrate. Discerning how to steward your time begins with being watchful (1 Corinthians 16:13).
Being watchful means slowing down, observing, listening, and assessing. You are not scrutinizing every second of your day; you can’t perfectly engineer your calendar or the outcomes. Instead, you are increasing your awareness of how to best allocate your time according to how God gifted you.
Once we see and evaluate, it’s time to get ready. We don’t just think about how we would invest our time. We plan how we aim to invest our time, because we believe that God has already prepared us for the work (Ephesians 2:10).
Through observation and discernment, you can begin to articulate your most important priorities.
Define Your Appointments
Jesus said, “I have chosen you, and appointed you, to go and bear fruit that would last.” (John 15:16).
How exciting is that? Why would we want to live a self-appointed life when we could live within God’s appointments?
How do we begin discerning how God is inviting us to invest our lives? We have an exercise we call Life Appointments. We ask people to list their most important commitments and relationships, and then list them in order of priority.
It sounds easy, but it’s actually quite challenging. We tend to assume we know what is important instead of articulating it clearly and in order of priority.
Your First Step
What is one Life Appointment that needs your attention? What is one area of life you want to see God transform? You probably already know what it is, and it may be something you have been pondering for quite some time. Take just a minute to answer these three questions:
Which Life Appointment needs elevated priority right now?
What is the first action item I can take in this appointment?
Who can I invite to walk with me and hold me accountable in this process?
Another Day to Abide
So what will a great day look like in the Encore? Not with a full, empty, or optimized calendar, but by experiencing Jesus and faithfully participating in His kingdom work.
John 15:5 says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing.”
This transforms how we understand time. We aim to become even more watchful for every opportunity to participate with Jesus.
Kenneth Boa writes, “We can’t control clock time, but we can seize every opportunity to do what the Owner of clock time desires.”
People retire, our purpose does not. God is not finished working in you or through you.
Wherever you are in the process of thinking about your Encore, there are a few simple next steps to choose from:
If you’d like to talk one-on-one, I’d be glad to connect.
Or if you’d rather ease into the conversation, you’re welcome to join us for one of our weekly lunches.
