“Dad, what were you dreaming about last night?”

My wife and daughter asked me an unusual question. We were on vacation, the first since I had retired the previous month. We all shared the same hotel room and, exhausted after a day of sightseeing, I fell asleep first.

When I woke up, they were smiling.

“You were talking in your sleep,” my wife said.

“What was I saying?”

“You kept saying, ‘No… I have it!'”

I actually remembered the dream.

“I was back in my pathology laboratory. We were having a surprise government inspection, and I couldn’t find the documents they were asking for.”

We all laughed.

“Apparently,” I said, “even in retirement I can’t leave my practice behind.”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized my dream wasn’t really about an inspection. It was about nearly five decades of responsibility. Deadlines. Regulations. Diagnoses. Running a laboratory. Making decisions that affected patients’ lives. Those responsibilities ended when I retired. The habits didn’t.

I’ve since spoken with other retired physicians who have had similar experiences. Friends who retired from law, engineering, construction, and other professions have told me much the same thing. After carrying responsibility for so many years, it takes time for the mind to let it go.

Perhaps our spiritual lives are similar. We often think God needs to teach us how to work. Sometimes He has to teach us how to stop working—to trust that His kingdom continues even when our work is finished. That isn’t easy.

We like to think everything depends on us. Yet Scripture reminds us that even while we sleep, God is still at work. He never takes a day off. He never misses a deadline. He never forgets what needs to be done.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.
Psalm 127:2 (ESV)

Maybe retirement is one of God’s final lessons—not simply teaching us how to finish well, but teaching us how to rest well.

Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.

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