Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Sellout (05/26/11)
-
TITLE: Retired Christians | Previous Challenge Entry
By Michael Wilmot
06/01/11 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
I like working and I like the work I am doing. I enjoy the challenges my job provides and the social interactions with a diverse team. I work with people from Poland, India, China, New Zealand, Mexico, Korea and the United States. I find people stimulating and my work less fulfilling when I not in the office working from remote locations. I believe our work, not our job, helps to shape us as a person so the whole retirement plan seems, to me, a strange goal for pursuit.
Outside of my professional life I have other work. I am raising children into adults who are confident and of good character. I am now taking graduate classes on husband-hood where my professor tells me I have a long way to go before graduation. I have a home which seems to need more and more attention from my hands and my wallet every year. I also have a host of friends and hobbies who compete for my attention. I have to admit that life can sometimes get a little frazzled but I would rather that than one where the clock, ticking on the wall, is my only companion.
Then there is ministry. This is an arena where good hearted people earnestly try to see faith as a verb albeit they are not always on the same page with each other. Working with these folks is a lot like herding cats up a ladder at times but I find these challenges to be the most rewarding of them all. I am in the ministry of men trying to heal wounds and restore the Christian image of a man. If you want to find some dragons or giants to go slay this is a good battleground. Even when you come with the full armor you still take a few wounds along the way.
I reflect on all the things taking place in my life and the richness of possibility for the road ahead and wonder why anyone would willingly give it up for retirement. To me this is the signature image of selling out. It sounds like cashing in your chips and dusting off the bucket list long before the work is done. I have known some men for many years and am convinced their next adventure is their up-coming funeral. They are all retired but mostly they are just tired. You can get them to show up to events if there is free food but try to put a hammer in their hands and you start to feel like the sheriff of a ghost town trying to raise a posse.
There is no such thing as a retired Christian. There may be back-sliding Baptists, lazy-lout Lutherans, Checked-out Catholics and Pass-me-by Presbyterians – but no Christen is retired. Romans 12 1 says "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (KJV) Your reasonable service is anything this side of breathing. If you are alive you have not yet reached your reasonable service.
In the cycle of a Christian man‘s life he has several transitions. First from the beloved son to the cowboy then from the warrior to the lover and finally from the king to the sage and there is work along each stage. There are a lot of cowboys and warriors, lovers and kings who need a good sage to show them the way. There is a vacuum of wise mentors and far too many young men running wild for any Christian male to sell out on being a man.
I have a retirement plan. It starts in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, goes on for eternity and you just can’t beat the benefits package.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
