Work & Vocation
I have retired and I feel useless. Work gave me a reason to get up, and now the days just feel empty.
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;”
This psalm was sung on the sabbath, the one day Israel deliberately stopped producing anything at all. Its picture of fruitfulness in old age comes from a song about rest, which is not an accident. The image is a tree, still growing and still bearing, planted somewhere on purpose. Usefulness here is not tied to output or to employment.
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”
Paul writes this while being physically worn down by beatings, travel and illness, and he does not pretend otherwise. The outward decline is real and he names it directly. What he refuses is the conclusion that decline is the whole story. There is a renewal happening in the part of you that a job title was never able to measure.
A path forward
Put three fixed commitments in your week that other people are relying on: a volunteer shift, a regular coffee, a job at church.
Offer what you know to someone thirty years younger in your old field. Mentoring is the most underused thing retired people have to give.
Give the hours you used to spend commuting to prayer and Scripture, deliberately, at a set time. Empty days always fill with something, so choose what.
Closing verse
“And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
- Isaiah 46:4
Coming Soon
Want to ask your own question?
Revealed is building a feature that lets you ask anything and receive a Bible-rooted response drawn from both Testaments. Join the waitlist to be first to know when it launches.