Retired

 I have yet to find someone in the Bible that retired after serving God for however many years. In most places, you put in your time, however long was predetermined by your employer, retire, and get your pension. I know people who retired young enough where they pursued a wholly different career for another thirty years and now draw two pensions from two different employers. I guess it all depends on how young you start and how many years you have to put in. The more dangerous the job, the fewer years you have to put in, but there has to be some sort of incentive to risk your life on a daily.

We must focus not on whether you can retire from serving God but on whether serving God is a job. If someone sees it as a job like any other and not a lifelong relationship, and companionship, then I’d understand where the question might get a bit of traction. Most people, after all, really don’t like what they do for a living, and if offered a way not to work and still keep a roof over their heads, they would take it most of the time.

Serving God is not a job, however, and whether nearing a century or just getting your feet wet in your early twenties, you are guaranteed to have the wherewithal to carry out whatever calling God has called you to. Whether young and strong or old and feeble, it’s not in your strength that you carry out the work of the Kingdom; it’s in His strength that you do it.

Once you start trusting in your strength, whether strong as an ox or fragile as an earthworm, you will eventually grow weary and fail. Only in His strength can we overcome and stand firm against the enemy. It is only in His strength that the work which was begun can be completed.

One of the benefits of growing older in the Lord is that you can draw on past experiences and remain steadfast when others, either younger or less experienced, are shaken and retreat. Sometimes all they need in order not to waver is to see you not wavering, knowing that if you came through the fire unsinged, then they, too, can do likewise.

The way of things is that the old warriors teach the young warriors how to wage warfare, but in order for that to happen, there need to be enough old warriors around to teach the young ones, and the young warriors need to be humble enough to receive direction from the old. If one of these two factors is missing, then the next generation of warriors will be nonexistent.

It goes a long way to explaining why with every generation, the church grows weaker, and those claiming to be warriors look at the weapons of their warfare with a confusion akin to a squirrel assessing the beauty of a Monet.

How did we get here? As with most things, it wasn’t just one thing. Due to their vanity, the young warriors pushed out the old because they wanted to bask in the spotlight, the old warriors discovered golf, laying down their swords in exchange for clubs, and the warrior mindset was marginalized because it was too toxic for this fragile and effeminate generation. Harsh? Perhaps. True? Most assuredly.

It’s hard to thrust and parry in skinny jeans, I guess. It’s hard to strap on your armor and go forth to battle when those you’re trying to defend are looking their noses down on you, decrying your very existence because you’re making them feel uncomfortable.

Unless you’ve got some battle scars, I can’t take you seriously if you start discussing warfare. Reading about war is all well and good, but waging war is another thing altogether. There’s the theory of fisticuffs; then there’s getting punched in the nose. I can’t tell how you’ll react to battle by watching you read the art of war, but I’ll know with certainty by how you respond to an uppercut.

I’ve sat and listened to the war stories of those who came before me, those who are now in the twilight of their existence or have already passed, and I couldn’t help but be humbled. Their appearance did not do their experiences justice, but these were true warriors who didn’t try to make it about themselves or take credit for the battles that had gone their way.

Looking at them now, you couldn’t tell how brave they’d been when they didn’t break under torture or give up the names of what was commonly known as their co-conspirators. Seeing them as they are, old and feeble, you could hardly imagine that these men set up underground networks, preached the gospel in secret, baptized converts in frozen lakes, smuggled bibles, and grew the church when entire governments brought everything in their arsenal to bear against them.

I’m sure the story of the trauma you suffered at the hands of the barista who switched your soy milk for almond milk is fascinating, but the days of the dainty and hyper-emotional farceurs behind pulpits are at an end.

Adapt or die. Learn to fight or get trampled underfoot. Know what it is to endure to the end or don’t begin at all. Whatever you decide to do, have the decency to respect the labors of those who came before you and the battles they fought on behalf of the Kingdom. It’s the least you can do.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.