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.
