Retirement or Re-Tyrement — What’s next?

Feb 14, 2025

Growing in Christ - Tan Kong Beng
We have just celebrated the annual Spring festival in Malaysia along with many other peoples in East Asia and globally. The annual celebrations mark the beginning of the lunar new year. It is a time of renewal and new beginnings as families gather in reunions of joyful merriment with work colleagues, friends and neighbours.

For me, personally, it is a time to look anew at my own life since I retired at the end of May last year after serving almost 16 years with the Christian Federation of Malaysia. Family and friends have been asking me what I would be doing next. My reply to them was that I was waiting on the Lord to show me. I really have no idea but certainly, I was open to a new beginning, different from what I had been used to.

All I know is that I now have an opportunity to stop being “on call” 24/7 and can switch off my mobile phone and take the opportunity to have nothing on for each day. One or two close friends had mentioned to me that I was a workaholic. If I was, I knew I had to get out of that situation. So, I entered into a time of intentionally not taking on new commitments of my time and energy other than what I had agreed to previously like preaching in my own home church and in other churches. There was no scheduling of my days except for the things that needed to be done in the home and to just being around the family.

One former bishop and dear friend gave me a great suggestion that perhaps it would be good to do up my biographical timeline and spot the occasions that the Lord God had directly impacted my life, and in remembering those occasions, I could then raise up prayers of thanksgiving to Him. This allowed me to recollect and to write down such significant moments where I had felt the wonderful hand of God upon my life, from my childhood days until the present.

I remember the many occasions our Triune God had saved me from a different life situation and gave me a redeemed life and new directions even before I came to faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. He had saved me from being unable to walk for many months and then on a Christmas Day, I got up and could walk again. I also faced death several times and each time I was saved. On one occasion it was a bomb going off just a few feet away in the train carriage my father and I were in. When I was six years old, I received a Children’s Bible from my parents who were not believing Christians then. Both my parents had attended Christian mission schools in Penang and in Ipoh and they were much influenced by the education they had received and the life examples of the dedicated teachers.

At the end of my theological sojourn at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia I received a direction of encouraging and building up of Christians from the Lord (I Thessalonians 5: 11). To this I add such recent “word” gifts received from the Lord like “loving Him more deeply” and “transformative ministry”. I look forward to seeing God open new vistas for me to enter into by faith in the light of such continuing directions as He has given to me throughout these many years of my life.

I do some scheduling of each day of my life with some activities for family life, personal growth, the local community, church and also carrying out such responsibilities as entrusted to me so I don’t squander away the precious time God has granted to me each day. The most important part of my day has been the time spent with the Lord each morning in reading His Word, in prayer and being ready to His leading each day.

One area of concern for me has been the question of where and what the Lord wants me to do in my local church community. I believe many of us seniors have life experiences and skills sets which the Lord can use for the growth and benefit of His people, young and old, in our church small groups (BECs), church and local community and even in our nation. All we need to do is make these gifts – natural and spiritual – readily available to Him and the church. As I did, perhaps you too could seek the counsel of your priest and other senior Christians in your church who could pray with and for you and seek the Lord’s face to show you how you can serve in your church community and beyond.

For sure, you, and I, may not be able to do many things as we enter the autumn or even the winter of our lives. We may have physical and health concerns. These days we may no longer be able to run with the horses. However, let us pray for the Holy Spirit to imbue us with the spirit of a Caleb at age 85 (“give me this hill country”, Joshua 14:10-15) or a Joshua at the end of his leading of Israel (“as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD”, Joshua 24:15).

The late Rev Loh Soon Choy, a dear colleague and friend at Malaysia Bible Seminary, when he retired from the seminary, told me that we servants of the Lord never retired, it’s only a re-tyrement for the next phase of our lives. How true!

(After many years in Christian service, Tan Kong Beng is seeking a new season of vocation and life lived in God’s ways. He worships and serves in Subang Jaya Gospel Centre.)