Tag: finishing well

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Is it OK to just be ordinary?


Thankful in All Things

I know.  I know….It has been a minute.  I really didn’t mean to take this much time off from writing.  It just kind of happened.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to share.  It was more that I wasn’t ready to share it.  I needed and, quite honestly, still need time to get my head around the fact that is alright to just be ordinary.  In fact, there is great power being faithful in doing ordinary things that you know will not create much fanfare. As a good friend says, “Do awesome things quietly.”
 
Michael Horton in his book “Ordinary” https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Sustainable-Faith-Radical-Restless/dp/0310517370 writes, “Sometimes, chasing your dreams can be “easier” than just being who we are, where God has placed you, with the gifts he has given to you. However, the power of God unto salvation is not our passion for God, but the passion he has exhibited toward us sinners by sending his own Son to redeem us.” 
For my younger readers, this may not make sense because you have set goals for what you want to accomplish in your life.  I understand and hope those dreams will be realized but the purpose of this post is to say it is alright if what you hope to achieve is not realized as long as you are pursuing that desire in the right way.
Jon Gordon says it this way.  ““I want you to know that in a divided and broken world filled with broken families, broken relationships and broken people (I am one of them) the answer is connection and oneness with a loving God that wants to heal us through a loving relationship.”

I definitely have less years ahead of me than behind.  I realize some things I had hoped to achieve or opportunities I thought might come my way didn’t happen.  If I am honest, it does eat at me.  I ask the questions, “Did I not work hard enough?’ “Should I have put more time into it?” “Why not me rather than someone else?”  All are legitimate but at the end of the day I am becoming content with the answer, “It was not what God intended.”  I am coming to grips with Hebrews 8:24,25, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”  Simply put, I am banking on this promise of a hope in what has been promised by God but I still can’t see. 


I am no longer working full-time which has been life changing.  It is has been an easy transition except for figuring out why all the free time I was going to have quickly fills up.  The challenge making it a priority to fill it up with the right activities.  Even out of work, one must have a focus to make sure one day does not ooze into the next and then the next.  It has been encouraging to me that my identity is in God and not my work. As I have shared, the challenge has been with the question, “has my life made a difference?” I believe over these last couple of weeks, God has answered that question.  Unsolicited and out of the blue, I have received several texts or Facebook messages saying how my life has made a difference in theirs. They had no idea about what I had been thinking.  I believe God used them to affirm that each of us can have a positive impact on others by just being faithful in the ordinary .which results in us encouraging others to do the same.
Surprisingly, it brought me back to what we are taught in John 15. “Christ is the vine and we are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.  Paraphrased from Matthew 12:30,31 We are simply to love Him with all our heart.  Go out loving and serving others as He has done for us.  And then, not worry but instead, trust Him with the outcome.  That will continue to be my focus.  I hope you will choose to do the same.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.  Please subscribe if you would like to receive email notification when new content is posted.  I can be reached by email at [email protected]
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How is the Sabbath similar to Retirement

Finding your purpose outside of work


Those that read my blog regularly, know I led a group of men through Bob Buford’s book, Finishing Well.  It is a book that helps individuals transition from our working lives to how we will live our lives after we no longer are expected to show up at the office every day.  Bob Buford calls it the ability to leave the identity we found in our work to pursue a life of significance with the extra time given now that the daily work responsibilities have been left behind.

The one quote that got my attention was, “Life after we stop working is not meant to be lived on the front porch in a rocking chair waiting for the hearse to come”  This is where I started thinking about how the Sabbath can be compared to Retirement.  It started with a Sunday School class on the Sabbath.  My mindset has recently changed because of my decision to start the transition from full time work to retirement.  I started asking myself the question, what could I do that wasn’t work but allowed me to pursue God with the time freed up by not having to be in the office every day?


The Sabbath is supposed to be about rest so that you can go about your work the other 6 days of the week.  I am coming  to understand that the same can be said about retirement.  I don’t think there is any mention of retirement mentioned in the bible.  Everyone has different ideas of what are and not to do on the Sabbath and for that matter retirement. Although there are many, for this blog post, I want to focus on one general concept for taking a day or rest and for spending our time once we leave whatever has been our full-time work.

That concept is leaving work behind so that you can have the time to “Be Still and know that He is God.” https://biblehub.com/psalms/46-10.htm  On the Lord’s Day, we are to take the time to come to the Father with the intent of laying our burdens down.  https://biblehub.com/matthew/11-28.htm  Making the day holy as He is Holy.  The question that needs to be asked is, “How do I make the Sabbath a day that is different than the other 6 days?”  I am asking the same question now that my work life has changed.  “How do I make Retirement different that what I have done for so many years now?”

It comes back to the desire to live a faithful life which creates significance and allows me to finish well.  My hope is to not fill the extra time I now have with busyness but instead seek God in ways I haven’t sought Him before so that I can determine what purpose He has for me in this new season in life.  Isn’t that really what the purpose of the Sabbath is as well? Taking that 7th day to stop and reflect on the fact that God loves us hopefully encourages us to live a faithful life during the work week.  This rest and worship pause should help our actions have a significant impact on the lives around us.  

One thing is for sure.  I don’t want to be that person waiting on the front porch waiting for life to end.  I want to continue to practice the presence of God in my life so I can seek His purpose in all that I do.  I hope you want to do the same.  Brother Lawrence https://spirituallyhungry.com/practicing-the-presence-of-god/ sums it up this way.  “God has infinite treasures to bestow.  When He finds a soul penetrated with a living faith, He pours into it His grace and blessings plentifully. When He does, it will flow out like a torrent, finding a way around every obstacle; spreading out with extravagant and reckless abundance”  May your Sabbath and/or in Retirement, provide you this hope and desire.  I can be reached by email at [email protected]