Working. That's what the title refers to. A friend, and once a fellow teacher in the same Christian school, asked me years ago: "What are your retirement plans?" He was referring to the very modest amount of money that would be available when retirement time came. My answer? "To work 'till I die!" I was not joking and I was not being pessimistic. I hate the word "retirement" and I hate the concept. I am watching things like my diet, weight, exercise, etc. with the deeply held desire to being doing useful and productive ministry and actual, physical work as long as God gives me breath. If I suddenly had several million dollars those plans would not change one iota.
There was once a member of the board at the Christian school where I taught for 34 years who liked to show a computer print out that "proved" how well off financially I could have been. According this insurance company projection, if I had deposited $25 per month in a fund with this company from the day I started teaching until age 65 I would have around $1.5 million. That projection may have been very accurate, but the stock market collapse of 2008 would have wiped out a significant part of it. That collapse wiped out much of the modest amount my wife and I did have.
Much or all of our financial loss could have been prevented if a certain person who had said, "someone should be watching your investments for you" would have been "watching" them when it was in his power to do so. But that is a story for another day. All I can do is forgive him as my Heavenly Father has forgiven me.
I have worked at two vocations since I was 14 years old. On the one hand I was a student and then a teacher (as well as teaching/preaching ministry in churches). On the other hand I began to learn a vocation even before my 15th birthday. During the first year I was married I worked with a man who was the master of masters in that vocation. By God's grace I have been able to fulfill the words of Jesus to "Go and make disciples" and the example of the Apostle Paul: "because he was a tentmaker" (Acts 18:3 & II Thess. 3:6-10). The first ministry/vocation has meant the privilege of impacting lives for eternity. The second has been God's way of providing for the needs of my family. I have had the privilege of working on the interior and exterior of many, many fine homes. This month makes 59 years I have been doing it.
As stated earlier, I intend to keep working at both callings and vocations as long as God gives me breath.
On the matter of pay and retirement for those who serve in vocational Christian work, such as a school or a church: what will ruin their lives is not the lack of money. What will ruin them is bitterness toward those whom they believe "owe me more". I have watched individuals destroy themselves with this kind of resentment and bitterness. Ironically, in one instance it was a person for whom God had provided very much. It is a cancer and if someone cannot be content with modest salaries and retirement benefits then they have no business in vocational Christian work. That is one reason I consider my second vocation so important. But God has also provided for my family and me in another way.
Susan and I were 35 years of age before we owned our first home. For nine years before that we lived in three different houses where, instead of rent, I took care of and improved the properties and did other work. When we did buy a home it was very old and very modest. As God supplied extra funds for us we improved that property nearly every year for 36 years. With improvements in buildings and extra land we were able to sell it for more than eight times what we originally paid for it. So God gave us back a substantial part of what had been lost in 2008. That is one of the meanings of the promise in the Book of Joel: "I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten".
For years I had offered to build my parents a house on our land so that they could live beside us and we could care for them in their later years. As they approached their 86th birthdays they gave me the go ahead to do just that. With the modest equity from their home and the help of many friends we built a home for them. Susan and I never intended to live in that house but that is what God worked out for us. He sent a neighbor to buy the house and land where we had lived for many years and we moved into this newer home two years ago. There is enough in that story to create another blog.
Financial experts would look at our salaries through the years, at our assets and our overall financial picture and be pessimistic. But they don't know our God and his rich provision for his children. We could not have imagined seven years ago that a church in Ashland would call us to be on their staff in a teaching ministry. But our greatest true wealth is our family: three children, their spouses and seven grandchildren who all know and love the Lord. On Sunday, August 4th 2013, our fiftieth wedding anniversary, I gave the morning message from I Samuel 7:12, "Thus far has the Lord helped us".
God certainly has no plans to stop helping us and I have no plans to quit working and ministering. NEVER STOP!
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