Prison Ministries

Read Hebrews 11:12-40, Psalm 92
There’s Gold in Them Thar Years
-by Tim Caron

The age of retirement has long been termed the golden years. Visions of all the golf we want to play, all the traveling we want to do, all of the leisure time we will have sometimes seem to be too good to be true and often are.

For many people, after a few weeks or few years in retirement, boredom and depression set in and the visions of pleasure have turned into worry and despair.

From God’s perspective, retire is what we do when we die, and the golden years are for storing up more gold in the first national bank of heaven as we use all of our accumulated wisdom, extra time and any left over resources in doing many of the things for which we were created and equipped to do by our life’s experiences.

By far, the happiest older people I know are those who still have passion for Jesus and are actively involved in ministry to others in faithfulness to the great commission and great commandment.

For men and women alike, opportunities abound in mentoring or even taking in foster children, counseling and sharing problems with people going through some of our “been there – done that’s.”

Love of travel can take on new meaning when it is combined with taking mission trips to share the gospel in different parts of the world. Time for writing, visiting the sick and the prisoners, comforting and encouraging, doing “honey do” jobs for those with no honeys to do them anymore are all just a few of the retirement year pursuits which can be real gold mine.

Using the extra time and energy to get deeper and learn more about God’s Word, and to put our faith sharing skills to greater use bring added assurance and joy to our hearts and a smile on God’s face.

When we think about it, there’s no sense in waiting for golden years to begin our gold mining operation. We can start right now!

Father, thank you for letting me discover the real gold of my golden years. In Jesus’ name, Amen