Choosing Joy

April 29, 2018

Sometimes the best course is to simply accept the inevitable. Some things in life we can change; in other matters, it’s we who need to change. In the past two weeks, I’ve had three different ministry opportunities come my way, in addition to the work I’m doing as a part-time pastor in Dunkirk. The ministry in Cuba beckons; the Addiction Response Ministry begun in Jamestown a couple years ago just launched a North County initiative, and I’ve been asked to consider mentoring a cadre of pastors-in-training. In addition, I have ideas and plans for the church; things I’d like us to accomplish. 

If I look at all this through the lens of retirement, it would be upsetting. My plans for a more leisurely life have vaporized. I never wanted to merely sit and while away the time, but I did have notions of actually having some to myself. Quite frequently, people say to me, “You know, preachers don’t get to retire.” Or, “There’s no retirement plan in the Bible.” It may be true, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear, especially from people who in retirement get to completely walk away from what they were doing and pursue something else. But I have a choice. If I impose my expectations on life as I am seeing it, I could make myself miserable. I choose instead to change me, embracing the opportunities before me with joy. Who knows? Maybe, as the poem says, “The best is yet to be.”