We’re now about
halfway through the great retirement transition of that massive generation born
from 1946 to 1964. The first Boomers hit age seventy in 2016; the last of the
Boomers will hit seventy in 2034. So, here we stand at about the midpoint of
the vocational sunset of more than seventy million Americans — about 20 percent
of the U.S. population.
I’ll resist
commenting on the sociology and economics. I want to raise one particular flag,
and wave it back and forth, for the eyes of Boomers who profess to love Jesus.
Florida Man
Earlier this
year, an article called “The Retreat of the Successful” caught my attention.
The author, Justin Powell, focuses on the disappearance of local businesses and
the (retiring) men who once built them. He’s not against the state of Florida,
but he laments the growing trend of retreat:
The Florida
house has become a symbol. It’s not just about retirement. It’s about retreat.
About people who once carried the weight of a place deciding they’ve had enough
— and disappearing just when they’re needed most. . . . To be
clear, I’m not blaming Florida. Rest is good. Warm weather is great. And after
decades of building something, enjoying the fruits of your labor isn’t wrong.
But the problem
isn’t geography. It’s disconnection. It’s a mindset that says: I’m done. Let
someone else carry the weight. It’s the decision to pull up roots instead of
planting deeper.
What we’re
losing isn’t productivity — it’s presence. You can’t replace 40 years of trust
and community.
Powell calls
this retreat “a quiet exodus” that is “hollowing out American towns — not just
economically, but relationally, institutionally, even spiritually”
(my emphasis). Others can lament the economics; my leading concern is the
spiritual and relational loss to local churches:
Churches,
nonprofits, and civic boards lose someone who said “yes” without needing
recognition. The next generation loses a mentor. And families — especially
extended families — lose a rooted presence they didn’t even realize they relied
on.
Rooted
Presence
I greatly
appreciate the phrase “rooted presence.” As a pastor, I deeply value the rooted
presence of aging godly men and women in a local church. It cannot be
reproduced in short order. Deep roots take decades.
Godly influence
compounds when you invest deeply in a place and demonstrate long years of
durability. Go elsewhere, and you have to start all over again. But stay put,
and you begin to reap the harvest of what you’ve sown over decades of
faithfulness.
Part of
embracing your finitude and the stubborn contours of God’s design for human
life is recognizing that you cannot microwave rooted, faithful, trustworthy
presence. If decades are chips, you get, at most, eight or nine to spend. You
don’t choose how your first two are spent. In the modern world, we have some
remarkable freedoms in how we spend our third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh chips. By the time you’re hitting seventy, you have spent most of your
chips. But there is no better return on your last one or two than doubling down
in the place you’ve invested the rest.
It’s not just
the communities and churches left behind that lose out. Powell observes,
Even the
retirees themselves don’t gain as much as they think. Their calendars may be
full, but they often feel rootless. Disconnected. You can’t recreate the depth
of a 30-year friendship at age 70 wandering around your empty vacation home.
And when those familiar faces are no longer around, a kind of spiritual
loneliness sets in.
To be clear,
you might spend your golden years in some daring foreign mission like Raymond Lull. But far more likely, yours is the far more
effective, and far less dramatic, call to stay rooted and reap the harvest of
decades of presence and faithfulness.
“Godly
influence compounds when you invest deeply in a place.”
For decades,
God has been preparing you for these golden years. They are golden. You’ve
never had so much life experience. And if you’ve been faithful and walked by
the Spirit, you’ve never had more wisdom. You’ve lived long enough to
appreciate the energy of youth, and you’ve seen the pivotal place of godly
patience in tempering that enthusiasm. Oh, how our young adults need your
perspective, guidance, and counsel.
Fight,
Finish, Keep
I’m not against
vacations. I’m pleading that you don’t vanish from where you’re needed most and
from where God has been preparing you for decades to flourish.
In 2008, John
Piper sounded the early alarm for the oldest Boomers, in their sixties and
nearing retirement. He writes in Rethinking
Retirement that “most of the suggestions that this world offers us
for our retirement years are bad ideas” (5). To finish well, as a Christian,
will mean “a radical break with the mindset of our unbelieving peers.
Especially a break with the typical dream of retirement” (24). And retreat.
Now, some
seventeen years later, with half the generation “retired” and the other half
quickly getting there, we may be due for rehearsing again the prayer of Psalm
71:17–18:
O God, from my
youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.
This is a
prayer for finishing well. And this plea to run well, with God’s help, all the
way to the end, flows naturally into the lanes of Paul’s great final flourish:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”
(2 Timothy
4:7).
Fight the
Good Fight
“Fight the good
fight” is a boxing image. You are in the ring of life with an opponent, whether
you recognize it or not. And he is trying to knock you out. He takes some big
swings in the early rounds of adulthood, but he gets craftier as you age. He
doesn’t give up.
Perhaps you
think he’s lost energy or doesn’t jab at you anymore. If so, you are being
played. He would love to land a late-round knockout blow, especially just when
you’re at the point of cashing in that last chip or two.
The contest is
real, but don’t presume the outcome rests decisively on you, with your
depleting energy. The good fight, says Piper, is “not mainly the fight to do but
the fight to delight.” Let your first and primary focus of these
years be this:
If we are going
to make Christ look glorious in the last years of our lives, we must be
satisfied in him. He must be our Treasure. And the life that we live must flow
from this all-satisfying Christ. And the life that flows from the soul that
lives on Jesus is a life of love and service. This is what will make Christ
look great. (19)
Finish the
Race
“Finish the
race” is a running image — and we do not run alone. John the Baptist crossed
the finish line (Acts 13:25). As did Paul (Acts 20:24).
And best of all, Jesus finished his course not from raw grit but for the joy
set before him (Luke 13:32; Hebrews 12:2).
New or
soon-to-be retirees, hearing the call to finish as Christians, cannot take
their cues from retiring peers who do “not believe that there will be a heaven
beyond the grave.” Piper writes,
The mindset of
our peers is that we must reward ourselves now in this life for the long years
of our labor. Eternal rest and joy after death is an irrelevant consideration.
When you don’t believe in heaven to come and you are not content in the glory
of Christ now, you will seek the kind of retirement that the world seeks. But
what a strange reward for a Christian to set his sights on! Twenty years of
leisure (!) while living in the midst of the Last Days of infinite consequence
for millions of people who need Christ. What a tragic way to finish the last
mile before entering the presence of the King who finished his last mile so
differently! (27)
The world may
think you’re past your prime; Jesus doesn’t think that. Don’t throw in the
towel when the finish line looms so near.
Keep the
Faith
Finally, the
aging apostle can say that he has kept the faith. And keeping the faith
includes more than just individual belief. In this same final letter, Paul
exhorts Timothy, in whom he’s invested, to invest in others:
What you have
heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who
will be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:2)
For decades,
you’ve been amassing wisdom and experience and patience and perspective. Now,
on the other side of a career, you’re finally free to share those riches with
others. There are younger men and women in the throes of their early careers,
new fathers and mothers insecure in their parenting, teens eager to grow up but
unsure how — all in desperate need of your rooted presence. Now is the time, in
these final golden years, to make Paul’s charge your own:
Let us not grow
weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So
then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to
those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians
6:9–10)
So, golden
saint, I plead with you to stay put and make disciples, for the good of your
family and your community, and especially for the good of your church.
David
Mathis (@davidcmathis)
is executive editor for Desiring God and pastor at Cities Church. He is a
husband, father of four, and author of A Little Theology of Exercise: Enjoying Christ in Body and Soul (2025). Read
more about David.
