NEVER RETIRE

 According to a February 2004 USA Today article, the number one suicide state in America is Florida. The number one suicide demographic in that state is retirees. In other words, retirement is deadly.

Work itself is of central importance in our lives. Not only will we spend most of our waking hours working, but work is inherently good for us. God created us to do meaningful and productive work and for this reason, we must understand the importance of work.

The first historical record of a society adopting the practice of retirement was in Germany between 1883 and 1889. The German Chancellor Bismarck created model social security laws in an attempt to counter socialist political influences in Germany at the time. In order to solve an unemployment crisis, he came up with the idea of older workers giving up their jobs so that younger people could work.

In the United States, President Roosevelt instituted Social Security to solve a similar economic crisis - The Great Depression of the thirties. In Roosevelt's time, the average life expectancy was sixty-three years, so retirement was set at sixty-five. Today, the average life expectancy is seventy-six years, and if you live to be sixty-five then your average life expectancy is eighty. If we were to be consistent with the original goals of Social Security, benefits would not be available until a person turns eighty-two. The original goals of Social Security and its corresponding minimal financial remuneration were not intended to be for everyone. They were intended to be a financial safety net for those who outlive the average life expectancy.

Retirement - ceasing work - is bad for us. A study was done in New York State that found that fifty percent of the men who retired died within two years of retirement. These findings are scary for a generation that has had retirement as its primary objective in life! Additionally, research has concluded that retirement can lead to depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, and alcoholism. These disorders apparently arise from, 1) shock of job withdrawal, 2) loss of the familiar, 3) loss of job satisfaction, 4) loss of identity, 5) lost goals, 6) feeling alone and "in the dark," 7) reduced income causing financial instability, and 8) the effects of the work ethic causing us to feel guilty for not working. It’s not a pretty picture, yet our culture seems obsessed with making retirement our goal. We’re even trying to figure out how to retire earlier!

In our culture we have made work a necessary evil. We’ve made ourselves believe that we work only to attain other things. We tend to think that the work we do only provides us with a paycheck and an ability to purchase the toys we want. We have confused the monetary rewards of work with the inherent value of “work” itself. This is a dangerous misunderstanding.

We must make a distinction between money and work. Money is the means by which we can purchase the things and experiences we desire. Work is the expenditure of energy in a direction for good or evil. While the love of money may be a root of evil, work in and of itself is good! It is good for us to expend energy because this is part of how we are constructed; it’s part of how we were created by God.

The movie "Chariots of Fire" is the true story of Eric Liddell, the son of missionaries in China. Eric was the fastest runner in Scotland and was torn between his desire to compete in the Olympics and his desire to return to the mission field in China. At a dramatic turning point in the story, Eric tells his sister that he is going to return to the mission field but that first he must run in the Olympics. Eric sees the disappointment on his sister’s face because she wants him to go directly to China. He explains to her, "God made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure."

Running was the work that Eric Liddell had to do. This is a truth for all of us. We all have work to do that energizes us, and when we do it we feel God’s “pleasure.” How would you fill in that sentence for yourself? What would you say to “God made me ________ and when I _________ I feel His pleasure?” God made us each uniquely, and when we act out of that uniqueness we feel His pleasure. The problem for most of us is that we don't know how we are uniquely created. We don't experience the joy of knowing God's pleasure "when we run" because we don’t know what it is we’re supposed to be doing.

The right work energizes us because it is consistent with how we were created, and who we were created to be. It is as if we have a part of our DNA that includes our proclivity for the right work. The right work fits with who we are and how we were created to reflect our Creator.