Every day we thank God for our relational richness with each other, with our children, grandchildren, friends, and ministry partners! None of our relationships is perfect. In a fallen, sinful, and selfish world, there are no perfect relationships. But they are still our highest calling, our top priority, and our greatest joy in life! Through the Spirit and Word, we have sought to be deeply rooted in the love of the Lord Jesus. We have also sought to be deeply rooted through love in our relationships. Short-term, casual, and superficial relationships are never fulfilling or fruitful. So we have sought to go for depth before breadth in our relationships. God has graciously honored this beyond our wildest dreams! As a result of investing our lives in these wonderful people God has sovereignly connected us with, we are seeing both depth and breadth of impact for the Kingdom of God “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). It is because of these wonderful Kingdom-building relationships that retirement is not in my vocabulary and not on my radar screen! The words relationship and retirement are mutually exclusive concepts. We do not retire from relationships in marriage or ministry— at least, we were never supposed to. God doesn’t retire from His relationship with us. Neither can we retire from our relationships with others. I could not imagine retiring from my marriage with Patt or my relationships with my children, grandchildren, friends, or ministry partners. At this stage in life, even if we may retire from a “nine-to-five” job, we need to refire and redeploy! And through the good, bad, and ugly, we are to hang in there and keep trying to deepen and enrich relationships as long as God gives us life.
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