Accelerated Growth in the Encore Years
Growth leads to even more growth. When we grow, we have more opportunity to be even more productive. While the common retirement approach is to decelerate, and mistakenly believe we have crested over our vocational peak, the uncommon approach is growing in our character and influence in our Encore years. God desires to use people in their Encore years in ways - and He has equipped us for every good work. Encore people keep growing, they know that growth leads to more growth, and they sow to keep growing.
God equips us to keep going and growing
God eagerly desires for us to keep growing because He is always inviting us into more opportunity. Joshua 13:1 says that the Lord said to Joshua, “You are old and advanced in years, but there is still much land to possess.” God was not finished with Joshua, even though Joshua was certainly feeling his age.
Joshua was not growing physically, he was actually in some level of decline. But God was inviting Joshua to finish the work by growing in trustful dependence on God.
Because God gives us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), we can be confident that He wants to keep growing us and sending us out to do the work He has called us to do. And he will sustain us for all of the work by His grace and power! God desires to use people in their Encore years in meaningful ways - and He has equipped us for every good work.
Accelerating Growth
When people retire, they look forward to a slower pace. But one retired man told me, “I assumed retirement meant slowing down. Instead, I’ve discovered new opportunities to invest in people and serve in ways I never expected.”
The most satisfied people in retirement are not slowing down, even if their bodies move slower than they used to. They have made growth and fruitfulness a priority. They are investing in others because they never stop growing.
Growth Leads to More Growth
A few years ago an older man invited me to his garden. He gave me about a dozen canna lily bulbs, which were still in the ground and dormant, since it was early spring.I planted them just outside the kitchen window, looking into our backyard. What happened astounded me. I watered them, they received plentiful sun, and by the end of the summer, those dozen bulbs had multiplied into nearly five dozen shoots, with flowers blooming at nearly 6 feet tall. The entire kitchen window was blocked from seeing the backyard. The growth from the beginning to the end of the season was staggering. I couldn’t believe the multiplication that took place.
In the same way this man gave me bulbs, God gives us talents, skills, and abilities. He gives us these good gifts to grow us and to multiply those gifts into the lives of others.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:9-10, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.”
God supplies us with all we need to grow, but He multiplies the growth, too.
By the time we retire, we are likely to have more resources at our disposal than ever before. Not just financially, either. We have more wisdom, acumen, insight, and experience than ever before. And the ways God has grown us can lead to even greater fruitfulness.
Sowing is Growing
Farmers spend almost 50% of their annual budget on seed and fertilizer. Sowing is an expensive task! But sowing is necessary in order to produce a crop.
When we retire, our mindset might be that reinvesting is too risky. After all, we worked hard to get where we are and it would be foolish to throw it away.
But the farmer risks by sowing seed into the ground, not knowing what calamity, disease, or natural disaster might spoil the crop. He sows in faith that the plant will grow.
In our Encore years, holding back our resources - financial, professional, relational, and more - limits the fruit God desires to produce through our lives. We shift from fear of risk to fullness of trust that He will bless our generosity in ways we could not have expected.
Dying to Self is Growing in Faith
The path toward growing is actually through dying. When we die to ourselves and live to God’s glory, we give Him access to work and move in our lives in powerful ways. Seeing God work in our lives gives us to courage to be even more available to God. Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 9: “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us, will produce thanksgiving to God.”
The goal of our Encore years is to be so filled by God that our lives increasingly reflect Him.
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.
