It’s the second day of the new year. How are you doing?
This has been a relatively stress-free week. From last Sunday after church until now, we’ve kept our heads down and allowed our bodies and minds to recover. One trip to the church to deal with an issue with the streaming video, to a quick stop at the store for some essentials, to let our vehicles burn no fuel – yes, it’s been a good and quiet week.
Tragedy has struck all around us.
But we are doing fine.
Even though some incidents hit close to home,
We’ve kept our heads down.
It felt safe. And right.
This doesn’t mean I’ve done nothing. No. I’ve been busy.
A 2,000-piece puzzle is on the dining table. That’s my “don’t interrupt me” excuse to talk to no one and think things through. Where I might usually take a road trip or drive my tractor in mindless mode, I’ve kept my mind engaged with a puzzle. This exercise shows patterns, colors, and opportunities to finish what I’ve started.
I’ve worked on my Vision Casting message for the First Sunday of 2025. Blogs still get written. Business still gets done. Emails are shared. And I’ve taken my annual plunge into cleaning up the newsletters I’ve subscribed to. Purge!
My plan is coming together for 2025 on the personal, family, financial, spiritual, and church front.
How is it going for you?
I’ll be 70 in a few days, so life is supposed to start slowing down. When I began a job in 1974, I was told my retirement would happen in 2020. That was 5 years ago, and I’m still going. I’ve plenty of examples from some who are close to me in terms of age and space to let me know it’s okay to keep on keeping on. You don’t have to retire when “they” tell you to. Of course, you must keep the perspective of knowing what you can handle.
I know of a man who prayed not long before death, “Lord, give me one more church.” A conversation with a cousin, “I’ll never retire. The Bible doesn’t talk about it, so why should I.” A mentor who’s older and still thriving in business – “I’ll slow down, I know, but I’m not stepping down and quitting.”
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”
(Genesis 8:20-22 NKJV)
If God never quits,
Then why should I?
Every morning,
I read, study, and write.
If I were to “quit”
Does that mean I stop growing?
If true, I’ll never quit!
I was at my dad’s retirement party in Anchorage in 1985. The company’s president told the retirees something like this: “Don’t quit. Get a job. Travel. Volunteer your time. Start a business. Stay busy. Statistics show half of you will be dead in a year if you don’t create a purpose for your life.”
So, it’s the second day of the new year. How are you doing?
Thank you for reading.
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