Recently, the popular author and speaker Beth Moore announced the beginning of her retirement: she is shuttering her Living Proof Ministries, and will be holding her last public speaking events.
I initially found myself surprised and even saddened by the news; yes, “Miss Beth” is older, but she has also somehow never seemed old enough for retirement. Moreover, she remains energetic and engaged—she seems, frankly, like she could keep going forever.
But she can’t. And she knows she can’t. “I’m getting closer and closer to the day that I’ll see [Jesus’] face,” she says in the article by Bob Smietana. “What are we going to do? Take our big old egos with us?”
I found myself similarly surprised by the retirement of a colleague. He was beloved, charismatic, and well-known for his boundless energy and innovative spirit. He was “only” sixty in a career where many of his peers have continued on long past that mark, some quite successfully.
Yet he quickly, quietly, eagerly walked away from what was thriving.
I am beginning to see this as a distinct mark of godliness, and of listening to God. Because so much of the believing life really does involve that ability to let go—yes, even of what we have been called to, when God tells us that call has been fulfilled. To submit to God means to move at his command. We know this, but what rare few of us are able to do precisely that regardless of what it might cost!
As I currently prepare (badly) to go on vacation, I feel this more keenly than normal.
A lot of people love vacationing; I hate it. I hate leaving things, especially to go overseas. And I worry a lot about what I will leave behind. What if something goes wrong at home—a fault in the wiring, a leak—and we’re not there to fix it? What about the cats, who despite having a regular carer always seem to miss us when we go? What if they get sick or something happens? What if something goes haywire at work? What if my dad needs something, or gets sick, or has an emergency?
People tell me I haven’t had a real vacation in three years; they are correct. They say I need it; they are correct. They tell me that my husband needs it even if I don’t; they are correct. They tell me we will enjoy and be blessed by the time together and that I will be able to relax for two weeks with God; they are correct. And yet I struggle.
Part of this, of course, is anxiety, and part of dealing with anxiety is managing the realization that we can’t control “what if’s”—that God will be present with in and through all things. But I also think part of the process is simply learning to leave. And what do we do when we learn to leave?
We learn to trust to God what we are leaving.
This is so hard. The human impulse is that we get to decide, that we know best, that we determine when we are done and it is ready to go. But in truth, if left to our own impulses we often linger—and in some cases long past the sell-by date. Part of letting go is ceding my vanity to God, my desire to control outcomes to God, my desire for surety to God.
After all, we do have egos, don’t we? Beth Moore is right. The difficulty in leaving is, at least in part, the belief that I am central to this whole procedure. But in truth, we aren’t. What God wants to manage He will manage with or without us.
I wish I could ask Beth Moore and my colleague if they found it difficult. If they second-guessed themselves. Why wouldn’t you, after all? When is it really the right time to leave? Isn’t there always more we could do? What if we’re wrong? What if we lose something in the process of walking away?
What I do know is that regardless of what they felt, they had a plan. My colleague, I learned, started planning his retirement two years before he announced it—quietly and in private, placing the scaffolding behind the scenes so that when he wanted to do so he could walk away with certainty. Beth Moore, too, indicated that some time ago she began her own planning, recognizing that those who did not surrender to God or plan for it were often caught off guard or unable to let go.
I am in my forties. God willing, my retirement is a ways off. But getting ready to leave for vacation and depart “my” life and “my” work and “my” pursuits, hobbies, and passions serves as a reminder that I should always be preparing for those times God might call me away. Like Philip before the eunuch, he calls us to moments and places and people—and then, just as quickly, calls us to where He wants us next.
May we learn to hold tightly to Him, and lightly to all else.
Samaritan's Song 