iRetire4Him Show 69: Questions to Ask Before and During Retirement, Part 1

Intro: While retirement is generally seen as a time of relaxation and self focus. God calls us to love, serve and help others for a lifetime. He has been preparing us for this retirement season, literally our entire lives. In retirement, countless Christians enter a state of spiritual dormancy, not knowing how they are called to have an impact for God's kingdom.

The Retirement Reformation seeks to encourage and empower the 50 million Christians approaching or in retirement to embrace the calling. God has been preparing in them when the world says it's time to stop, you can begin to have your greatest impact. Welcome to iRetire4Him. The mouthpiece of the Retirement Reformation, where our goal is to journey from retirement to reformation. So you can say, iRetire4Him!

Jim: Reaching out to the 50 million Christ followers in America who are approaching or already in retirement. You've tuned into, iRetire4Him, the mouthpiece of the retirement reform. I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg. Of course, we're joined by the founder of the Retirement Reformation. Bruce Bruinsma.

We invite you to check us out online retirement, reformation.org. And of course on Facebook, under Retirement Reformation. Retirement, the process of prepping for and entering into retirement is daunting to say the least. So many possibilities, so many ways to get it all wrong. Is there really a wrong? As we've said so many times on this podcast, many retirees know what they're retiring from, but very few, I mean, very few know what they're retiring to.

How can you make sure you're prepared for what's ahead? Bruce Bruinsma is here today to lend some advice. As we begin our three part series questions for prepping for retirement today, we're gonna focus on seven questions we must answer in order to be prepared for retirement, Bruce Bruinsma welcome back to iRetire4Him.

Bruce: Hi, Jim, and so good to be with you. And I'm looking forward to dealing with these seven questions. Number seven is a, is a key number in the, in the Christian historocity. And so these seven questions will be ones that you'll wanna matter of fact, let me suggest to our audience, go get a notebook. Because you're gonna want to take some notes today.

Jim: Or your iPad, if you're a little younger and you wanna take notes on your iPad, but that's or your iPhone, whatever it might be. So, Bruce, why is it important that we ask ourselves questions before we head into retirement?

Bruce: Well, as you said in your introduction, there are so many people that, that know what they're retiring from, but have little idea of what they're retiring to.

So how do you enter into the conversation with yourself, with your spouse, family perhaps? To be able to answer the question, what am I retiring to? And we know that in order to answer that question, there are these seven choices that you can make. And once you make those, you will then be able to enter into a meaningful thought process, planning process, discussion and an action plan.

Jim: All right. So what is the number one question we should ask before we enter into retirement?

Bruce: When you sit back and you think about the retirement that's coming up or perhaps the next stage of retirement that's coming up, to really start at a 30,000 foot level and, and ask a very basic question. What's really important to me?

And when you start to take that apart of what is important to me, that will take you down the various trails that are part of the upcoming questions that we will address. But we'll start to give you a guideline of how God is shaping your thinking about what is next and what you're retiring to. So for example, what are the desires that you have that God has put in you?

What is it that you, you just feel I need to do that? What are the passions that God has built into you? What is it that I react to? And as, as I've said often, when someone says to me, well, how do I know what I'm passionate about? It's what is it that makes you cry. What is it that kind of chokes you up? And I'm a much more emotional guy than most people think.

And Jim, you know, on these in our podcast , quite often, we will have a subject or a topic and I really get choked up. We just had one in our, in a conversation we had with a wonderful lady from the Netherlands. But the topic that she has really, really gets me, I was really passionate about that.

Jim: Right.

Bruce: So what are, what are our desires? What are our passions? And then starting to sort through those and say then, okay, what are my priorities? And when you address that part of what is important to you, that starts to give you the, the boundaries within which God will direct the rest of your life.

Jim: So do we need to ask these just before we enter into retirement or do we need to ask them again in the middle of retirement as well? I mean, do, do, do we need to ask these questions more than once?

Bruce: Yeah, of course. It's more than once. When you're entering into retirement, when you're moving from stage one to stage two of retirement, usually in your late seventies and in that period of time, and then in your late eighties, one more time. It may be in the middle of it also because it's, there are so many needs and there are so many opportunities that once we get away from the, the disease of nothing and we move into "what is it that God's got planned for us?" these questions continue to become priorities.

Let's just think to, you know, the 40 years of Moses. And, and so God gave him the direction and he had his questions very much up front when he went to see Pharoh, but had to continue to refine those as the circumstances changed over the next 40 years. And each one of us has that same both need and opportunity.

Jim: So that reflection needs to happen often. All right. So what's, if the first question is what's most important to your retirement regarding your desires, your passions, your priorities, what's the next question we should ask ourselves?

Bruce: It's really interesting. It's one that before I really became engaged in this topic and really understanding where people were I would've put this next question much further down on the list. It's right at the top of the list because it has to do with what is our transition going to look like? And here's the question, where are we gonna live?

As a matter of fact, I suggest to those that are in their fifties and perhaps early sixties, that one of the best things you can do is grab your spouse's hand and go for a walk or dinner or wherever it is where you, you really talk and just ask the question, where do you think we ought to live? My goodness.

That brings up so many issues. Some that have been buried and need to come to the surface. Some that will be surprising. And probably the most important part of the answer to that question is that whatever your answer is for next, it is only the next step. And you will ask that question again, because wherever it is that you decide to live, you may not live there for the rest of your life. Things change. Times change. You change. But that question of where are we going to live and coming together in unity is where, what our next step is gonna be is really important.

Jim: My encouragement to you as you're thinking about where you're gonna live, just remember, there's already plenty of chronologically superior people in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. We need you right where you're at, where your family is, where there's families that are younger than you, where you could pour your life into them. Don't move away and be with a bunch of people that are 55. Plus we need you in the society. All right, what questions should we ask ourselves, Bruce, that helps us connect with our heavenly father in this process?

Bruce: You know, the bottom line process is to be connected with God's plan for your life. And so the question becomes, are you connected with God's plan for your life? And that starts with just realizing you acknowledge that he has one. There's number one.

Jim: Wow. That's a great one. Do you acknowledge that he actually has a plan for your life? When Bruce and I come back in the third segment, we're gonna finish up this conversation of the seven questions that you need to ask yourself before you get into retirement so you're prepared - well prepared. You're listening to iRetire4Him, the mouthpiece for the Retirement Reformation. When we come back, you're gonna hear from a very special guest. We'll be right back.

Break: Membership has its privileges. And with the Retirement Reformation, it's true. We have three levels of membership to access our growing wealth of resources.

We also provide discipleship and training to bring the Retirement Reformation alive in your life. So join us, go to retirementreformation.org, and click on the membership tab. Choose the level of membership that will help you rethink retool, reframe and reform your retirement today. The basic level is free, so you can get started today.

Take the journey from retirement to reformation so you can say iRetire4Him. RetirementReformation.org. Let's get back to more iRetire4Him.

Jim: Welcome back to iRetire4Him, the mouthpiece for the Retirement Reformation, Bruce, during every second segment of our podcast, you bring on a special guest in order to have them share their story of them living out their life during their quote unquote, retirement years. Who do you have for us?

Bruce: I've got a special guest today that was introduced to us by Elliot Innes, our director of operations for Retirement Reformation, and he always has good choices. And so Dr. Marlene Bizub. That right? I've got it correct?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: That's correct.

Bruce: All right, I've got it. And you know, if you can handle Bruinsma, we're all in good shape.

We just appreciate your being on today. You've got a, you have an impressive background and, and just give us a, a quick introduction into, you know, who you are and what God's has been having you to do. And then we can talk about what's next.

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Oh, I would love to share this. So the first court case I ever did. Afterwards. I said never again. And then I quickly realized that God placed me there for a reason. I'm a child of divorce. I've been divorced as an adult, which I don't believe in, but it happens to the best of us. And so I realized that all those things that had happened in my life perfectly prepared me for work in the courts.

I was in court even this morning on a case. And it's a brutal place to be. It really is. But if we don't have God there, you know, and it's a challenge because you can't openly talk about faith and religion in court because of the separation... and I know somebody told me, I, I don't tell this right... the, the separation of church and state. So I have to be really careful, but you can believe that God's presence is there when I'm there.

Bruce: So when you are in the process of being an expert in the midst of all the chaos and, and if you look deep into yourself, what is the desired outcome that, that God has put inside of you? That if that happens, man, that's a 10.

Dr. Marlene Bizub: A peaceful situation for the kids. Parents who can co-parent if not peacefully, at least not contentiously, that they can at least maintain some level of civility and especially around their children. If I can get them to not display, whatever they're feeling - anger, resentment, betrayal, possibly, you know, whatever they're feeling - and not express it in front of their children, that's a win.

Bruce: That's wonderful. And, and you've been doing this for a long time?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Yes. About 20, 27 years.

Bruce: So how in the world are you able to maintain that beautiful smile? Oh, and a positive attitude in the midst of all that chaos?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: You know, I think just knowing that kids need somebody there for them, the kids keep me going. The parents, I hate to say certainly do not, but the kids do for sure.

Bruce: You know, that we know that in the work that we do with, with older people, that in fact, they could play a much more active and positive role should they choose to do so in these circumstances and lots of others. Do you see much interaction between, you know, the role of, I'll just say grandparents, but of older people in the lives of...

Jim: Let's call them chronologically superior, Bruce, let's not call them older.

Bruce: Chronologically superior. Yeah. I always think, I, I guess my ego can handle that one. The but do you, do you see much of that kind of an interaction taking place?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Yes, I do. And the best way I describe the role of grandparents, in my cases, I get stepparents who can either be my greatest asset on the case or my biggest problem, but grandparents almost 95% of the time are a solid resource for the children. They're there for the children. I think they have enough maturity, you know, by the time they get to be grandparents that they know how to protect kids through this. Whereas some stepparents still don't and some parents still don't. But the grandparents, they play a vital role because they are often that go-to person for the kids when they're in the middle of all this.

Bruce: I think the ability to both identify and encourage grandparents and older people to, to actively take a role in the lives of those who are hurting and chaos and come alongside people like yourself. Do you have a particular story that you'd like to share with us as we, as we kind of get towards the end of our interview?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Yes. People ask me all the if I'm thinking about retiring. You know, you must be getting close to that time that you're thinking about that. And I have to tell you retiring, doesn't enter my mind other than when people ask me about it. But I don't think about retiring because when you love the work you do, when you have a passion for the work you do, it's not work.

It's not something you need to retire from. I had someone ask me the other day - and it was a good, good question and I think a legitimate question - they said, if you had eight to five hours, would you still feel that way? You know, probably not. I mean, I've got the advantage or benefit of being able to set my own schedule, but I just can't imagine ever not wanting to help these kids in these cases.

Bruce: Well, you know, when you found that meaning and purpose, that makes all the difference. I was hearing someone say the other day who has a nonprofit organization that deals with kids and, and they were asking, what is it that, what advice would you have? And, and her comment was this, her comment is find something you're passionate about, rip off a piece and get started on it.

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Yeah.

Bruce: And I just thought, boy, you represent that. You don't have to rip off any. You're right in the middle of it. And so, Jim, do you have any questions?

Jim: Yeah, I do. Marlene, iRetire4Him is a podcast focused on people that are retiring or already in retirement. And I imagine - just based on my experience, a little bit in the foster system, because I've got all three of my kids are involved in fostering - is that it seems like there's a need for more volunteers in the court system overall. And you got a lot of retirees today, listening to the show that are going, I want purpose.

And, and Marlene seems like she's super excited. She's still working full time and you're of retirement age. I'm not gonna disclose how old that is, but there's people that are listening going. Could I help? Could I help in any way? How could our listeners help you?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: The place I would tell them to go is CASA - court appointed special advocates.

CASA. And I'm actually going there tonight to teach a co-parenting class for the court, but CASA has, they utilize volunteers in their foster care cases. And so there is a big need. And I know over the past couple of years with the pandemic and everything, I know they're short on volunteers. So I would have people call CASA.

Bruce: Very good. We will look up that information and put it on our website.

Jim: Yeah. And so I just love that sign behind you: love your children more than you hate your ex. And, and as Jesus followers, there's no room for hate anywhere. And obviously in divorce, there's never an easy divorce.

Divorce is a gift that just keeps on giving and giving and giving in so many cases. But there are some great organizations out there in case people are listening, going: yeah, but I don't know how to deal with my kids' divorce. I didn't get divorced, but I don't know how to deal with my own divorce that we've interviewed some people in the past 0 smartstepfamilies.com as a great website to go to, to get some resources.

But Marlene, in closing out today, speak to those people who are retiring or already retired that are wondering how can they be an asset to their children whose marriages are struggling because they would, it's so easy to take the side of your biological child yet your grandchildren are your biological children, give some advice, some things you've seen grandparents do that you would not recommend repeating and some things you'd like to see that you'd like to have more grandparents repeat.

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Yes. Well, like I said, most of the time, the vast majority of the time grandparents are a positive asset for the grandkids. I would say, just listen, just listen. Don't try to give them advice or tell them what you, what to do, or, you know, that type of thing.

Just listen for their adult children. I believe it's okay to say on here: direct them to the Bible. Our pastor actually is doing a series right now on marriage and divorce. Of course is rarely biblical. And I say rarely because there are a couple of exceptions in the Bible, but it's not gonna be easier with the next person.

And there's statistics that show if you get divorced once you'll get divorced again. And so direct them back to the Bible to therapists that work with people on marriages and things like that.

Jim: Yeah. And it was Dobson years and years ago, Bruce, you probably remember this when he came out and they did a study and people that were in crisis in their marriage and they decided to get divorced. Five years later, they wished they hadn't.

And those that stayed married five years later had the best marriage they ever had because they worked on it and marriage is hard work, but divorce is harder work. Marlene you've, you've seen that. And as grandparents of kids who've gotten divorced, it's like getting on a thin edge, trying to make sure that you're, you can stay in touch with those grandkids as marriages break off.

It's a full time ministry, but I appreciate you just sharing your story today and just a little bit of it. But how many more years you think you got in you? I mean, you think you could do this till the day you're done probably?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Probably, I mean, as long as my health permits, I will do this until I can't.

Jim: Mm that's fantastic.

Bruce: That's good. I'm glad. Thank you. We're so pleased we have people, you know, like you are doing that. And as a, as a friend of mine often says, isn't it amazing wherever you go, you bring yourself along with you?

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Yes!

Bruce: Dr. Marlene, thank you so much for your time today. We'll look forward to our next connection and, you know, God bless the work that you're doing, and may you maintain that emotional strength that it needs to, to be able to make a difference. So thank you.

Dr. Marlene Bizub: Thank you.

Jim: You've been listening to, iRetire4Him. We'll be right back.

Every iRetire4Him show goes so quickly. We don't often get to remind you that there are two resources you should be checking out right now. I recommend that you get a copy of the Retirement Reformation book and the, I retire for book retirement.

Reformation focuses on the mindset and behavioral changes needed. Let's just say paradigm shifting that is needed to live out your faith in retirement. iRetire4Him is focused on many of the ways you could put your faith into action by investing your life into others in your retirement years. Get both at the Retirement Reformation website in the bookstore Retirement Reformation.org. That's retirement, reformation.org.

Hey, welcome back to iRetire4Him, the mouthpiece for the Retirement Reformation. We're talking today about seven question you should ask yourself as you prepare for retirement. First one is what's most important to you in retirement? Your desires, your passions, your priorities, where will you live?

And are you connected to the unique plan God has for you? Bruce, we've still got four more questions, but only eight more minutes. When we're talking about the questions that we need to ask before we head into retirement, things we need to decide in advance. What's your next question?

Bruce: Well, the next question is this - and, and we could spend a whole hour on being connected with God in that process so absolutely connect with Retirement Reformation, org to help you walk down that pathway. So here's an interesting question. And question number four, who do you wanna love?

Jim: Yeah. What do you mean by that? Cuz I, when I was preparing I'm like, I don't, what do you mean?

Bruce: Well, for example, do you wanna spend most of your time in relationship with your children? There's a driver upon where we live and what we do. I want to love on them. Secondly, God may be calling you to love on the orphans of Ethiopia. And so that's going to change their, that direction of where you're going to be. Perhaps the opportunity to love veterans. to love the disabled.

Who is it that God is making a priority in your life? It doesn't mean that you're going to not pay any attention to everyone else, but where is it that, that, that internal love mechanism really needs to go to work. It's fascinating if you'll ask yourself that question and you and your spouse talk about it, you'll be surprised at some of the answers that will come out of it that you hadn't either thought about or hadn't expected.

Jim: And, and it'll give you some direction to answer some more of the other questions.

Bruce: Absolutely.

Jim: All right. So, so many of us are worried if our finances will carry us through the end of our lives. What's a good question to ask here?

Bruce: Well, the basic question I think in its most simple form is will you have enough?

And at some level we all understand what enough means. However, when we think about it - that our retirement years may be where we're faced with things like inflation today. And so when we say we have enough, what's really behind that, will there be sufficient resources be able to respond to God's call on your life?

To be able to respond to where he wants you to go, what he wants you to do, how generous he wants you to be, and with whom he wants you to be generous? And so having enough has, again, a whole series of, of different components to it. But the key is that are there enough resources that in fact your stewardship can overflow to others?

Jim: Hmm. And, and that's just, I love the fact that you put in there, your generosity. To plan your generosity. Because in, in my opinion, one of the things that I don't wanna do is to dump a bunch of money on my kids. When I die, I wanna be able to start teaching them how to handle their inheritance long before I go.

All right. So what questions should we be asking when it comes to making sure that we're still improving as a person, even in retirement?

Bruce: You know, and, and I think playing off the words you just used, even in retirement, I think therein lies an issue. That, what I have found is that during my retirement years, although obviously very active, I think I learn more every year about myself and about my relationships, about things I do.

Well things I do terrible, things that I can change. That whole area of generosity. There are all these areas that, that are that open. And so that, so that our personal growth continues, cuz if we stop growing well, what are we?

Jim: We're dying if we stop growing.

Bruce: Exactly.

Jim: So the question is where are you on your personal growth journey?

Bruce: Exactly the question. Yeah. So that, that is the next to the last question of where are you on your personal growth journey? And the answers to the prior questions will also help inform the answers to that question, because they're all integrated.

Jim: Bruce, take a minute to get a little personal with that one on your personal growth journey.

How have you made sure - and this isn't a spiritual growth journey. We're gonna deal with that in the, in, in one of the other podcasts here in, in our three part series - personally, how are you making sure you're just still growing and expanding and becoming a better person in your retirement years? Even though you haven't retired, but you know, in your retirement years?

Bruce: Well, one of the, one of the guiding lights that is still unraveling for me is how in fact do the fruits of the spirit, how are they reflected in my life? How are they reflected? And so, as I counsel with people, as I mentor with people, and then I look at the issues in my own life to remember that it's the lens of the fruits of the spirit that guide me often to different answers than Bruce Bruinsma would come to all by himself.

And that's the holy spirit speaking to us. And so the lens of the fruits of the spirit are the pieces to the puzzle. So I can ask myself, where am I in my love journey? Who am I not loving? Or who am I not loving enough? Love what? What comes next? Joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, generosity.

I got eight things that as I look through my life with those lens, I continue to find areas of things I don't know anything about. And things that I don't reflect in my life. And so that personal growth journey - by reading, by looking for other examples, by investigating things that come in front of me and say, gee, I don't know anything about that. Huh? That's interesting. Let me go find out.

One last one little story to illustrate that. Our son, Brent is challenged, special needs. And he has a set of encyclopedia. One of the wonderful things is that he can read. And so whenever I'm talking with him and we're talking about something he doesn't know anything about, I say to him, Brent, go look that up in the encyclopedia. And we'll talk about that. The next time we do, he does, he goes and he reads about it. And the next time we talk, I say, Brent, what did you learn when you read about this subject in the encyclopedia? Oh, dad, I learned a lot.

Jim: Hmm, that's great.

Bruce: Can't we all?

Jim: All right. We're talking the seven questions we need to answer before we head into retirement. The first one is what's the most important to you in retirement, your desires, your passions, your priorities, where will you live? Are you connected to the unique plan God has for you? Who do you want to love? Will you have enough? Where are you on your personal growth journey? And finally, Bruce, before we come to an end of this podcast, life in retirement comes with uncertainties. Well, it doesn't come with certainties. It comes certainly with uncertainties, except that the only certainty is that will end in our passing. What helps us? What question helps us to deal with those uncertainties?

Bruce: I think most of us can identify at least some of the, what I call the special issues of life. It could be a special, in my case, I just talked about Brent. That is a special issue in our life that we have to take into a, into account. So what are the special issues?

So it may be a relationship issue. It may be a financial issue. It may be a next step in a career issue. You know, I'm 81. I've got a, I've got a transition period coming. Here in the next year or two. Now I gotta decide what are the next years going to look like? And so we have, oh, health - there's another one. Relationship with your spouse, relationship with your kids. What are the special issues that you have to take into account as you pray, think about and be prepared to step into retirement or into the next stage of retirement?

Jim: And just to be able to plan on living day by day. I mean, it's great to plan for those 30 years, but to recognize that you don't know whether you have tomorrow or not so make the most of today, Bruce, great conversation about seven questions that we absolutely need to deal with before we enter into retirement. Good conversation today, Bruce.

Bruce: Thanks Jim. Absolutely very important questions.

Jim: You've been listening to. iRetire4Him the mouthpiece of the retirement reformation with your host, Jim Brangenberg. Of course, Retirement Reformation's own founder, Bruce Bruinsma. We're Christ followers, journeying from just the idea of retirement to reformation so we can ultimately say iRetire4Him.

Outro: Thanks for listening to, iRetire4Him. With your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg and Retirement Reformation founder, Bruce Bruinsma.

iRetire4Him is the mouthpiece of the Retirement Reformation. Most Christians tend to follow the world's pattern of rest and self pampering during retirement. However, in your retirement, you can be focused on God's unique call to love, serve and help others. This can be your best season of life. If you take advantage of a life's worth of knowledge and experience and combine it with a greater freedom of time and money and invest it all in the generations, both preceding and following you. The Retirement Reformation is encouraging Christians to find and follow God's call in all seasons and aspects of life, especially in retirement. Take time to sign the manifesto at retirementreformation.org.

And explore the wealth of resources available on our site. Join this movement of God and journey from retirement to reformation. So you can say, iRetire4Him. Go to retirementreformation.org.