Retirement: Don’t Retire from Relationships

To have and to hold To love and to cherish For better, for worse For richer, for poorer In sickness and in health Until we are separated by death. And to this I give my promise: Where you stay, I will stay Your people will be my people And your God will be my God.

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A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34

One of the privileges and securities of age is the benefit of experience and perspective. You have lived long enough to see and experience God’s great faithfulness through many seasons of life. Therefore, long-term friendships and relationships are one of the greatest blessings of life. Of course, our foundational friendship is with God through Jesus Christ. While we do not deserve to even be His slaves, He has called us “friends” and “brothers and sisters” (John 15:15; Hebrews 2:11). So whether in marriage, ministry, or missions, the more mature the relationship, the greater the love, trust, fruitfulness, and joy!

One of the basic principles of life is this: the root determines the fruit. God said that a remnant of His people would “take root below and bear fruit above” (2 Kings 19:30; Isaiah 37:31). So, the deeper the root, the richer the fruit. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the Bible exhorts us to be “rooted and established in love” (Ephesians 3:17). And if we are rooted in love, then the dominant fruit of our lives will be agape love because “God is love” and “the fruit of the Spirit is love” (1 John 4:8; Galatians 5:22).

The Christian life is about loving people with the love of Christ. As a result, we are to build loving, covenant relationships and not just functional relationships. Because God is a relational God, He calls and commissions us to make relationships our priority. That’s because relationships are the only things that outlast everything else.

Even though we are at retirement age, Patt and I are experiencing and enjoying the truth of that principle in both marriage and ministry. While this seventh decade is not the easiest season of our lives in some ways, it is definitely the most fruitful and fulfilling.

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