Ep. 057 - Rethinking Retirement: A Conversation with Jeff Haanen on Faith, Purpose, and Rest

Episode Transcript

Austin
All right. Welcome back to Second Half Stewardship where we explore our role as stewards of everything that God provides. Today we're excited to interview Jeff Hanan. Jeff founded the Denver Institute of Faith and work and wrote a book recently about retirement called An Uncommon Guide to Retirement Finding God's Purpose for the Next Season of Life. If you're watching this video, you'll notice that Jeff is not in his wisdom years.

Austin
He's more mid career. Jeff, we're really thankful that you have joined us here today. So as you approached writing a book on retirement as not being someone in the midst of retirement, what led you there? What what did. How did you get here?

Jeff
Yeah. Well, I should first say that when I was 17, 18 years old, my dream was always to be, in my wisdom, years. So I it's interesting. I was a kid, 16 years old, and I was I was reading Proverbs at that time because I thought, like King Solomon and the wisdom literature, what I was wanted. And so I've always pursued that.

Jeff
But my I only have some gray hair that you can see some of those gray hairs.

Austin
Yeah, just a few, not many.

Jeff
Yeah. So what what led me to writing the book was I had spent most of my career asking about how Christian faith shapes our work. And it's important question, because for most people, work is a major part of our adult life. But then there's this whole other season, season called retirement. Sometimes it starts in mid 50s sometimes, and it doesn't start until mid 70s.

Jeff
But what I kept on coming across when I was speaking at churches was pastors would say, look, I've got a lot of people in this season of life. I can't just talk about work. I have to talk to my whole congregation about this broader concept of vocation. So I started to do doing some investigating what might faith say to the season of retirement.

Jeff
And I didn't find much in terms of a theological view of retirement out there. There's a handful of books, but I thought they were a little off in some of the frameworks. And so I decided to dive in and talk to people, do some research on retirement as well as what might Scripture say to the seasons of life in order to just give people practical wisdom, and potentially some direction on what God is calling us to in this season of retirement.

Austin
Yeah. That's great. So as you were researching, as you were asking a bunch of these questions, what kind of came up to the surface, either from people that you interviewed or the contrast of a biblical view of retirement versus a cultural view of retirement?

Jeff
Yeah. So I think the cultural view of retirement, pretty typical is that retirement is an ongoing vacation. You've saved a bunch of money, and now you get to put your feet up for a long time. Work was terrible, or it was least painful. And now what you get to do is, you know, suck the fruit of the land, right?

Jeff
Or you spend, spend down that, corpus that that you've been saving up. And, I just think we need to question some of the paradigms around retirement. So I think a lot of people are thinking about that. Some people can't actually afford that vision. And I would say a lot of, Americans cannot afford that vision.

Jeff
So that can cause some frustration and jealousy in some cultural, I would just say battles. And then I would say there's also some people that do have a vision of sort of social service or how am I going to give back to my community. And that's a good vision. But I did want to take a step back, at least in the book, and say, if these are some cultural paradigms about retirement, what might Scripture saying kind of give us a simple or a little bit more of a comprehensive framework that both acknowledges work seasons do change.

Jeff
We do get older. And there's something about work in vocation that were meant for over the course of a lifetime. So I tried to actually create this middle way when I was writing the book that I hadn't hadn't heard much about.

Austin
Yeah, yeah. That's good. Well, and I was even in the car with my dad this morning, and he just turned 70 over the weekend, and I was taking him back to the airport, and I was sharing a little bit about this conversation we were going to have. And that idea of at some point you are going to have to slow down whether you are 20, 30, 40, 50.

Austin
Life just starts to change. And even then, as Spencer and I have talked about it, what we could do 15 years ago was vastly different. So as you've thought about this idea of, okay, entering those wisdom years, the years towards retirement, what does shift and how do we start thinking about a biblical framework for the reality of aging, the reality of life circumstances changing and needing to change in retirement?

Jeff
Yes. I would love to meet Mr. McLaughlin someday and have that conversation in the car. Potentially. I think at least a few things. So the Bible doesn't obviously speak directly at the at the theme of retirement other than one particular passenger numbers eight where it talks about retiring Levitical priests. And in that passage, it, talks about them essentially laying down the hard physical labor of hauling around the Tabernacle and letting the younger guys do it.

Jeff
And but they were still sitting at the, tent of the tabernacle, and they were ministering to their brothers, the other priests, which is interesting. You could see there is a sort of a seasonal shift in life of lay down the young guys work, but take up the work of giving, of mentoring, of caring, of offering your wisdom to others.

Jeff
So I think the simplest way to put that I'll summarize in a second in one sentence, but a simple way to put how the Bible sees this is the word elder. And so when we hear the word elder in our culture, maybe we think about elderly, which is, either advanced old age or just an insult or we think about it in terms of the church and like a position, in a church on an elder board.

Jeff
And those are there's very good reasons there are elder boards because of how the New Testament uses that word. But in Old Testament elder, those were the leaders of Israel. These were tended to be older and they tended to be men, and they were, leading the community. They were making decisions. And so one of the illustrations I wrote about in the book was not actually from the biblical narrative, but Cicero.

Jeff
When Cicero was 80, he was appearing in court on behalf of his friends. He was learning Greek. He was reading, ancient history in his time, like he was very much alive, and he wasn't going to battle, but he was very much caring for his community with what God had given to him, right? In Cicero's own non-Christian way.

Jeff
So he wrote some incredible stuff. So what does the Bible say? What I write in the in the book, and maybe we could unpack this a little bit is I think, Scripture calls us to consider a season of rest, renewal, and re-engagement as elders with wisdom and blessing for a coming generation. So there's a handful of aspects of that we could potentially unpack that.

Jeff
I think that would be my one sentence summary of what I think the Bible says is what retirement.

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that was one thing that you didn't cued me in of this idea of sabbatical that you dive into here. And how do we rust? How do we regenerate? How do we then reengage? I think that's such a crucial thing that we have not wrestled with because, as you mentioned in the book and as we've talked with clients, it's the rate of heart attack and depression.

Austin
The moment that you quit working and have essentially open doors to whatever is next, it I think it just produces either depression or anxiety or heart attack for a lot of men in their early 60s. So as you think about this idea of rest and the importance of it, and unpack that a little bit for us.

Jeff
Yeah, I'd be happy to. There is some research that retirement could be very bad for your health. And I would say it's usually worse for men than for women. Women usually have more of a fluid kind of concept of retirement, because their careers have usually been more fluid between family and work. For men, it's a little bit been a little bit more black and white, and it tends to be more of a hard cutoff in retirement.

Jeff
And it can be very tough, for your health. Yeah. And so, I mean, in that season, what I recommend of the book is thinking about this concept of sabbatical. Again, sabbatical is usually something that maybe a pastor or a scholar does, but the vast majority of people have never really taken six months or 12 months off of work.

Jeff
CEOs that sell their company, I mean, maybe that, but the vast majority of people have never really done that. And I think, again, that's sort of a middle way because it's acknowledging that a lot of people, after they've worked a career and they've been in the job, there's pain, there's a readiness to lay it down like, I don't want to do that anymore.

Jeff
Maybe I don't have enough energy. Maybe I just, I mean, lots of things. There is a real pain there. Right? But sabbatical is for a time. So in Leviticus 25, if you let the land lay fallow for a year, you let it lay fallow for a year, and you see what the Lord does provide for you in the future.

Jeff
But there's a time, component to it. So in the book, I lay out nine different practices of people that think about planning an early retirement, very intentional season of rest. So this could be hobbies. It could be worship. It could be visiting people. It could be acts of justice and, working and seeing community members that you've never had the time to slow down and see.

Jeff
So there's a handful of things I write there, but I think the important thing is also that sabbatical comes to an end. There is an end date. And that's the difference between that and the cultural vision of retirement, as is ongoing vacation. There's a kind of a need to always find more, better things to do and to prove that you're actually the carefree, fun person in retirement and you've got it all together, right, rather than the human stories.

Jeff
Still is the human story. There is difficulty and pain in whatever context, right? So I just think it pushes against that aspect. The culture aspect of retirement says be really intentional with the season and give yourself a season of rest. It makes a lot of sense to actually give yourself seasons arrest. And frankly, if we could do it every seven years throughout our career and take a year off, I think I would feel right.

Jeff
Like, just think how you'd feel if you let the land lay fallow one year out of every seven and you just didn't work. I think there's some very practical challenges in the American economy. You're doing it for most people, but there is a day of rest. But there also needs to be seasons of rest to renew our interior world and get ready for what?

Jeff
Whatever the Lord has next for us.

Spencer
Then it's so interesting. Even just anecdotally, Jeff, we see clients so often move towards retirement and then within maybe a month, those who are really high energy and very active, oftentimes they'll get some kind of an offer to come back as a consultant or come back, you know, in some capacity, and they'll just jump on it because they don't have that maybe guidance of take 6 to 12 months and let's just rest.

Spencer
And it, it, it kind of can go back and forth in this kind of season of intense work and then burnout and then coming back and forth rather than, I think what you're getting at here is really being intentional and being in a posture of listening to the Lord. Yeah, maybe on that, that next season, which, you know, is just again, it's one of those uncommon elements of the highlight in the book, one of those pro tips, you know, so to speak, that, you know, we love seeing because it is an uncommon view.

Jeff
Yeah. And I think that hopping back in too quickly, I mean, there's there's two errors, there can be hopping back into quickly or never hopping at all and say, I'm never doing any of that again. And that tends to be actually divided pretty quickly around those that really enjoyed their work and want to get back into it, or entrepreneurs, professionals or whatever.

Jeff
And then the majority of the American workforce, that's like, I, I was paid to do that. I'm never going to do that again. I'm not going to just go. If I worked at Walmart for a career, I'm not just going to go scan stuff in the basement just to stay in, stay busy. That's just not what you do, right?

Jeff
It's just a it's a different framework. But I do think there is that question of purpose. And why do you hop in so quickly into something else? I seen this with business owners that sell, and they'll sometimes get into something too quickly. They feel a void in their life, and they want to fill that void very quickly.

Jeff
And as a Christian, I believe that void can only be filled with the life of God. And so you have to actually take you have to grieve if you have to let go. Just like kids, when kids move out of the house, there's a grieving and a letting go and allowing God to fill us in so that when we reengage, it's not from an empty place or a place of seeking to sort of extract life from something, but to give the life that God has given me to something.

Jeff
So that's why I think even some discipline around that sabbatical, and I'm open to what that looks like. Right? In terms of how long and what are some of those activities. But even if you really did have a great opportunity, it would probably be there in six months or 12 months or some close version of that. Especially if that's the way the Lord's leading you to continually, professionally contribute in some respect.

Austin
You've kind of been hinting at it, but, you know, the you probably have an opportunity at least some of our clients, I think, would have an opportunity even prior to that retirement stage, if they're making a move between companies, say, five, ten, 15 years prior to retirement, but they find it's just a grind, you know, in the midst of, of, you know, their career or maybe the the load of responsibilities.

Austin
You know, you've recently, written a book working from the inside out and of course, thought a lot about vocation and calling. Is there an opportunity, maybe, for folks who are second half of their careers and they're they're feeling that intensity, maybe to do something similar, maybe in a smaller way if they're in a transition. How do you think about that?

Austin
Maybe in context of what we've just talked about?

Jeff
Yeah. A couple thoughts on that. You guys are wealth advisors. So, you know, there are certain seasons that are very expensive, and some that are less expensive. So I am 41, and I'm in an expensive time in my career. And I think that, I mean, life's seasons. It's okay. Like, there's just, boy, the volleyball and the soccer and the traveling tournaments and in the house and and then just eating everything, like through the walls, too.

Jeff
I mean, they're not rats. They're beautiful daughters. I have four daughters, but they just eat everything. And so there are expensive times. But it is worth pausing in the middle of career. To your question, to think.

Jeff
Am I working from a real place of fullness or anxiety? Depression? Burnout? Panic? I have to meet all these budgetary concerns, right? I have a friend. His name is Abraham. He works at a hospital. And, prestigious medical school. And he had the choice to go anywhere he wanted afterwards. And he decided to work at a public hospital serving our city's poor.

Jeff
And he just said, look, I could have made 3 or 4 times as much, but this is where I felt called to be. And he fits his lifestyle with respect to where God is calling him to work and to serve. So I do think a lot of the burnout stuff comes from like, what are these desires that are disordered in our heart and that are really driving us to the ground?

Jeff
Right? Is it the identity thing of, I need to have the bigger house to prove my worth, you know, to somebody else. And there's a lot of these things that are sort of underneath the surface that drive us to getting really tired and exhausted, why scale quickly. Like what? There's a lot of these questions that we need to ask, because I do think if God is calling us to something, it will be for our best and for our good.

Jeff
To do that and to work in that. And so I do think we have to really question in terms of like what is actually causing me to feel this way about my life and my work right now. And Lord, what would you have me lay down so that I might take up something greater, right, like a greater fullness from God?

Jeff
And I think those are. Not all work is opened up into the right way. God might be calling you down into the left. Down into the right, maybe a better graph metaphor there, but he may called you to make less, work less and say time is more important than income right now, right? So these are all important questions for a person of the kingdom working through, like, what does it look like to walk alongside people in a holistic way?

Austin
Well, then that resonates a lot. Just because if we don't have prayer lives that actually allow us to listen to the Lord and engage with him through the day and build those disciplines, it, you know, it just feels fruitless, in so many ways. Even if we add zeros or if we add, you know, accolades or the size of company or whatever it might be.

Spencer
If we don't do it, listening to the Lord and being obedient, you know, he says, I own the the cattle on a thousand hills and and, such. So, appreciate your your, wisdom on that.

Austin
So, Jeff, I think one of the questions that I've kind of did percolating is you and Spencer is sharing, there is this idea that as we come to the Lord with both our current season of work and our future season of work, we really need to come with a posture of open hands.

Austin
And so how do we wrestle with this when so much of our culture is saying, go for the zero, go for the three times multiplier for your value of your salary? Like how do we slow down and encounter Jesus and allow him to speak in to who we are so that we can really, you know, slow down and rest in him with our posture towards work, with our posture towards retirement.

Jeff
Yeah. Well, a couple thoughts on that. I think when we move fast, when anxiety is creeping at the door, when we have found ourselves drawn more and more to having more and being more, we do need to pause and say, why am I doing this? To what end? And that's always a question of desire. What do I really want and why do I want it?

Jeff
So Jesus, this first question to the disciples in the Gospel of John is, what do you want me to do for you? That's an interesting question. What do you really want here? And I do think with you guys as work as wealth advisors as well as with even just pastors in general, asking people, what do you really want and why do you want it is a very good question.

Jeff
And just let people sit with that, right? Because it's like when you think about the house, we're thinking about moving. We may have a bigger house. We have four kids. We kind of need the space, but maybe we don't need the space to, I don't know. We're wrestling with this. We're going back and forth. Right. We have not only thought about, you know, square feet and dollars that are going to be coming out of our bank account.

Jeff
But we're also thinking about what do we want and why do we want it. And those are really important questions that I think drive the other ones. Very practically there are spiritual disciplines that people can do and build into their life around desires and wants. So there is ignation spirituality There is kind of a foundation of it called the principle and the foundation.

Jeff
And even just reading the principle on the foundation, I can send a link to you guys as well. That would be helpful. It really causes us to question if the real goal of our life is life with God. So he gives us the gifts of the world to experience him. However, when the gifts of the world displace him, everything gets disordered.

Jeff
We actually have to regularly practice letting go of even good gifts, especially when our heart grasps down on them rather than receives them in freedom. And that's a very gray line in somebodies heart, right? When have you received a house as a gift in freedom from the Lord? And what is it like? That's Gollum, right? That's mine. That's my precious.

Jeff
That's the thing I have to have. We could ask these about a lot of things, but then the the principle of foundation, a newer translation of it says our one and only choice should be this. I want and I choose whatever leads to the deepening of God's life within. That could be health, it could be sickness, it could be a long life, it could be a short life, it could be success, it could be failure.

Jeff
Either way, the great gift is free and offered to us right now. And so doing those different things and reminding ourselves, what do I want? When are these things displacing my great joy, my real treasure? And then how do I regularly hold things open handedly and be okay if I got the deal or lost the deal, if I got the job or if I lost the job?

Jeff
Either one of those, like, can you be fallen? Okay, in either of those contexts, there are there are disciplines we can build into our life that bring about freedom. Because I think a lot of our culture tends to say, you need to have that to be okay. And then we grasp down further, further into that. And that's more like bondage.

Austin
Well, even as you were talking, I was thinking about some of those questions that we regularly ask clients. I think we do ask the what do you want? What are those dreams, visions, goals that you have for this tax season? But I think even as we ask them, sometimes it's harder to get to that. Why? Why is that important?

Austin
Why is travel or family or those other things important? And I think it's because we see what we think should be important, but we maybe haven't spent that time with the Lord to really wrestle with. Why is it important? Even as I think about times that I, I have either purchasing decisions or career decisions? Well, yeah, I may want it, but that why peace always seems like the most critical of what's really important.

Austin
What's getting at it is is my heart soft towards the Lord, or is it desirous of just things that I want and not why? Maybe the Lord wants to for me in a different direction. That's really. Yeah. I think a good, good question to ask.

Jeff
Yeah. Just to give you an illustration in our life right now as we're thinking about moving, we're sort of in between. We don't have a ton of clarity of whether the Lord would have a stay in our home and practice contentment in a smaller house with the six of us. You can hear the subtext of that, or whether you have us move.

Jeff
We remodeled our kitchen back in 2018, and I remember walking in after the contractor just put the countertops in and like, yeah, I wept, and I wept because it felt like. An elaborate gift that I didn't deserve. And I just got so excited that my family could eat there and we could enjoy times together, in that, in that place.

Jeff
And it looked beautiful and I was proud and excited. And I just, like, wept praise at that time. So the heart can go either way. Again. I hope your listeners don't hear don't don't buy more things. There are good things to do with money, right? Like there's there's definitely good things. But not only what do you want, but why do you want it?

Jeff
What if all wealth advisors ask that, right? Or even the five whys? Just keep going down into the why to get to those real root desires as we have, and if we can get those. At the end of the day, Christ is the only one that will meet all those root desires, right? And then when we get to that point, the experiences, the work, the things that we purchase or don't purchase, they can be gifts that can be gifts from His hand.

Spencer
And yeah, all that. It's so good to hear you grapple with that and see both sides of it. Being able to rejoice at the good gifts that God gives and also grapple, you know, with, with the role of the steward. You know, it resonates a lot with us. We've got four kiddos as well and added a room in the back as we adopted our youngest, and at the same time, we're on top of each other at times, and kids come to us and say, you know, it'd be really nice if we had one more room and say, well, we can't add on anymore.

Spencer
And we've got, you know, five families from church within two blocks of us. So there's this, this sense of community, you know, for us as we kind of grapple with that. Jeff, that's that's a little bit different than, you know, a lot of folks get. But it's it's that constant coming back and saying, Lord, what are you up to here?

Spencer
How do we be faithful in the midst of this? And you know that I, I love that, you know, you're open about grappling with the emotions that you feel and going back and forth because we certainly feel the same. You know, there's times that my wife and I are just like, oh, man, it'd be so nice if we had a little more, but that's not what the Lord has said, you know, at this point.

Spencer
And so being, I think, comfortable with that and, and acknowledge, you know, even our emotions in the midst of it just feels really healthy, that, you know, the side of heaven we're going to need to, you know, grapple with things and turn them back over to the Lord at times.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good word.

Austin
So, Jeff, I kind of want to come back to some of the the pieces that you talked about earlier and this idea of a season of rest, because I think that pairs well with this idea. If we if we don't know how to rest, that we probably don't know how to stop and listen to the Lord about these why questions.

Austin
And so as you think about this idea of sabbatical or Sabbath and rest, how do we how do we tangibly take steps towards that? It I think that there are some things that you put in the book. They were helpful, but what are maybe some of those practical elements that we can do to stop and to fight against this cultural milieu of what you need to do versus maybe what the Lord is prompting.

Austin
And those are notional y questions.

Jeff
Yeah, sure. Well, I think on the the interior side, I think the reason for Sabbath, as I wrote a little bit about my book, one, is to trust the Lord to provide for you in the future. That was a core reason why Sabbath existed, is that he had his people regularly, look to him saying, look, I brought you out of Egypt a slave, remember?

Jeff
I will provide everything for you. So I think that trust piece is really important to interior disposition. The identity, the identity piece as well is that you are mine. You are my child. You are one of God's people. As a core part of it. You are not what you produce. And Americans need to hear that you're not what you produce.

Jeff
You're not your LinkedIn profile. This is not fundamentally who you are. You are who I say you are. Now, I think that identity piece is always a struggle because culture is trying to put stuff on us, and we're trying to put stuff on ourselves as well. And then I think the justice piece, like there was the reason for Sabbath.

Jeff
What is saying not only should you not do any work, but neither your male or female servants, or your animals, or your foreigner residing in your towns, or doing your work like it's it gave space to community, to other people having a space of rest and restoration rather than the nonstop slavery of work, which can look like a lot of the American experience.

Jeff
Right. So you'd ask some practical, you know, questions too. I think you can set put it on your calendar. I want to take six months. You can prepare for it, right. You can create a launch feast with your friends saying, we're starting a sabbatical here. What should we learn and what should we remember? Right. What have rhythms of Sabbath look like here?

Jeff
When we're doing hobbies or, recreational activities, how can we use that to God for God to actually shape and form us in being a paying attention to, like, are we cranking out work or in our hearts? Are we allowing God to work in and through us? Right. There can be practices. A remembrance can be practices of caring for the poor.

Jeff
That can be just practices and getting rid of stuff we don't need. And more simplicity for the sake of having more, joy in your life practices of learning and renewing your mind. So there's a lot of things that we can do in a Sabbath structure. And I do actually find that the biggest, concern when I talk about that with folks is saying, I could not do nothing for nine months.

Jeff
My head would fall off. Well, God doesn't really like when you look at the Sabbath like Jewish festivals or even in the Old Testament, like there is community, there is feasting, there was worship, there was a lot of stuff going on. It just wasn't you cranking out work. Right. And so for us to actually think about these different things that are not, not intrinsically productive, but are very good, very good, we can build those into a schedule in a way that doesn't have to be nuts, but it still is a different kind of a rhythm that feels more like a Sabbath world than a productive world.

Austin
Yeah, that's good. Well, Jeff, thanks so much for walking us through some of the practical elements of retirement. Where can folks find you? You find your book.

Jeff
Well, you can find me in Denver, Colorado, if you want to come and travel out. It's it's a beautiful place. It's where I live with my family just on the south side of the city. Jeffhaanen.com is some of my writing. H A A N E N Jeffhaanan.com and then my book is on Amazon. Working from the Inside Out as well as Uncommon Guide to Retirement so you can find the other.

Austin
Awesome. Thanks, Jeff. We'll link both of those in the show notes below. We look forward to seeing you guys next time. Where we going to talk with Jeff about calling. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.