iRetire4Him Show 158: As You Go - A Way of Life
Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years can be 30 years filled with meaning and purpose as long as you connect your faith and your retirement days.
Martha Brangenberg: Welcome to iRetire4Him. We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Check us out online at iRetire4Him.com.
Jim Brangenberg: So many of us have a misunderstanding about that great commission and almost all of us think it doesn't have to do with our retirement years. As I've studied and learned about following Jesus in his great commission in Matthew 28, Jesus wasn't telling us all to go, he said, "as you go." As we are about our daily routine, we are to teach others the things he taught us and is teaching us. As we go, not go.
So as you enter your retirement years, the call is still in your life too "as you go." In fact, you have more time than ever to teach others what Jesus taught and what he's teaching you. This is how your retirement days can be filled with meaning and purpose because you can "as you go," even when you are FaceTiming your grandkids in another part of the country.
So what does this look like, this "as we go" thing in our retirement years? Victor Dawson wrote a book about his experience "as you going" in life, and he is here today to share from his daily experiences and to inspire all of us in our quote unquote retirement years to "as you go." Victor Dawson, welcome to iRetire4Him.
Victor Dawson: Thanks, Jim. It's pleasure to be with you and Mary - Martha. I'm sorry.
Jim Brangenberg: That's her sister. Her sister's name is Mary. That's right. Alright, so Victor, we just got done recording an iWork4Him show, which we'll release about a week later than this iRetire4Him show, and in this show we're gonna shift the focus to you're As You Go book and applying it to those that are in those retirement years, because we are all seeking meaning and purpose. But I wanna just shift that mentality, but I wanna encourage everybody listening to go to iWork4Him.com the week of the 4th of February to capture the story that Victor released with one of his mentees on iWork4Him.
All right. So Victor, first question. How long have you been in your quote unquote retirement years?
Victor Dawson: I'm the age to be in my retirement years, but I'm not retired at all. I still own a company that I run, that I started 22 years ago that does global product sourcing. We just sold a second company about four years ago, and I have a ministry called guess what?... As You Go, that we are developing beyond the book into a small group curriculum. There's been a song written and a whole bunch of other stuff, and maybe even a podcast. I don't know if I can do it as well as you guys.
Jim Brangenberg: But can you sing this song for us?
Victor Dawson: Oh gosh. You don't want, you don't want me to do that. (laughter) no. I'll record it in the shower tomorrow morning.
(laughter)
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah, there you go. And we'll publish it for you. Yeah, that would be fabulous.
Jim Brangenberg: Heard first here, right here on iRetire4Him..
Martha Brangenberg: So what you're saying is in spite of the fact that the world looks at you and says, you should probably be retired by now, or at least America looks at it that way, you have a lot of things that are just ramping up, it sounds, in your life.
Victor Dawson: Yeah, I think the best is yet to come. I get frustrated with people that say, they meet you for the first time and they say, so I'm assuming you're retired, or how long have you been retired? And I am not, come on.
Martha Brangenberg: Okay. So let's dig into that conversation a little bit. What did you hear from the pulpit as an adult about retirement or what it should look like when you retire?
Victor Dawson: Sadly, I don't think I've heard much of anything about it, actually.
Martha Brangenberg: Okay.
Victor Dawson: And it's not biblical, as there's nothing in there. It's pretty much an American or western concept of, okay, you go to school, you work your career, and then you retire when you get to be 60 or 65 or some age. You can no longer have value for the company and so they give you the gold watch and send you on your way.
And everybody's excited about it and talking about it, want to even retire early so I can go travel and play golf and all the rest of that. Statistics show that people that do that and don't have a purpose in life die about 10 years sooner than they would otherwise.
Jim Brangenberg: And what's funny is these companies that you say, they think that you no longer adding value, so they give you the Gold Watch and the kick in the keester, those are the stupidest companies on the planet because truly the most wisdom comes from those who have no hair any longer. (laughter) The most wisdom comes from those who have gray hairs, have significant chronologically superior experience to the young people. That's where the wisdom of this world lies.
And yet we absolutely, we kick them out because they're more expensive. As Dave Ramsey would say all the time, "stupid on a sandwich." You wrote this book As You Go, Victor, which I really enjoyed, and I enjoyed the many different stories, and we covered one of those stories in depth on iWork4Him. Where did you learn to "as you go" in your life?
Victor Dawson: I got involved with men's ministry called CBMC, Christian Businessmen's Connection. It started in the US almost a hundred years ago and is now in about a hundred countries around the world. And the mission is evangelism and discipleship of business people. And so I started to learn how to do that, how to be an evangelist or to share your faith. And then along the way, I was searching for my purpose in life, my lifetime purpose.
Not a goal, but the thing you do, you never check off your list, the thing that you do until you take your last breath. I realized after a lot of prayer and some talking to one of my friends, that was my purpose, and I wrote it "as an ambassador of Christ, as I go, to make diciples of all nations by giving, loving and serving with integrity people around the world," and I can do that till God calls me home.
Martha Brangenberg: Amen.
Victor Dawson: And so I have a purpose every day when I get up, and one of the things I pray is that God would lead me to someone that needs to know him better.
Martha Brangenberg: So let's talk about that a little bit more. What does it look like for you to live out your life from this "as you go" perspective?
Victor Dawson: It starts with prayer, okay? A lot of people say gosh, I don't know how to, I don't know how to reach someone. I don't know how to find a Timothy to disciple, a mentee. Have you asked God? Why in the world wouldn't God bring you one? He will, maybe not tomorrow, but it's at the right time and the right place or the right person. He'll bring you somebody if you just will be alert and keep your eyes open. Have your radar on. Abide in the Holy Spirit.
Listen. 'cause there are plenty of times when I've been on a plane, maybe let's say, and no matter how hard I try, I'm really not gonna have a conversation with the guy next to me. He's got his earbuds in and he's zoned out and he doesn't want to talk to me at all. Okay, maybe that wasn't one I was supposed to share with, but there are plenty other times when God is, you can sense the prompting right away. God wants you to say something to this person.
Now we gotta be clear here. You're not gonna save him no matter what you say. You're not gonna save him. God does the saving. He just calls us to be his witness, to be his ambassador, to share about him and let God take it from there. So that takes all the pressure off. That's part of the problem of the great Commission is most people think if I go out and I talk to somebody and share my faith and they don't get down on their knees and pray the prayer, I failed miserably.
No, because there are times, I tell it this way, I try to start a conversation with somebody and they shut me down and say, listen, I don't want to hear that stuff. Get outta my face. Go away. I did my part. Now maybe I'll learn from the encounter that, maybe I should say it a little different or do something a little different, but the thing is, we don't know what God's gonna do in that person's life in two months or two years. And he's gonna go, you know that guy that was on the airplane with me, he was trying to tell me something. When I get to heaven, I'll be sure and apologize. (laughter)
Jim Brangenberg: And it's so great that you live your life like this, where you're looking for those opportunities every day. And our retirement years can be a new chapter with an open agenda to work for him. Be encouraged, everyone out there listening, to live out your faith in your retirement. So many men and women need what you have. Pour your life into them to be inspired and to help others understand retirement.
Get a copy of our book iRetire4Him: unlock God's Purpose for Your Retirement in our bookstore. You can find it on our bookstore online or on Amazon. Go to iwork4him.com/bookstore. You'll find in there amazing inspiration from so many others and especially Martha's dad who wrote his stories of living out his faith in his work.
Victor, so many of our listeners were told that they had to go, that they had to go in order to be able to be significant of the kingdom and not that they were just supposed to just teach others as they go. There's a significant difference in "everybody's gotta go" or maybe some aren't called to go to the difference of living life "as you go."
Victor Dawson: Yes, absolutely. The operative word in the verse Matthew 28:19, that we're referred to as the Great Commission, is make - make disciples, and we can talk about that part in a minute, but my contention is that you've gotta go first, that you've gotta share with someone. You can't disciple a non-believer.
You can do what traditional mentoring looks like in a secular world, but you can't disciple a person with a different worldview. So you gotta share your faith. But then the part, and here's where I think it gets confusing to people - they, first of all are scared to death to share their faith, which is silly because it's very easy and fun to do, and you might even make a few lifetime friends in the process. But when it says go and make disciples of all nations, I think most people say, oh gosh, I'm so glad that's the way it's said, way it's written 'cause that's gotta be the pastors and the missionaries, right?
That's not me. I am so glad for that. I'll put some money in the offering to cover the missionaries and I've done my part. No, Jesus was calling all believers to, as you go along your way, share about him and then make disciples. And it just is supposed to be like a lifestyle. It's just supposed to be the way we are as Christ followers. That this is just a natural part of our being as we go about our day and go about whatever we're doing, that we look for those opportunities to share our faith.
Martha Brangenberg: I think about the conversations that we have in a day and how we can sometimes just run into a perfect stranger and say you are a doctor or a physician. You naturally, if you hear them saying they have a problem with something, you naturally go into the conversation about here's something I know that might help you. Or say you're a really good shopper and you know about a really good deal somewhere, you naturally hear about the need and help to fill it.
But for some reason, as believers, we shy away from that same conversation when it comes to our faith and sharing, seeing the need and helping to show them the answer. And I think that is really an essence of the "as you go" portion of it. So as we talk about it in respects to retirement, I think that there's a huge connection here because there are people that are still going to financially retire.
And Victor, there may be a day when you sell your company or somebody else takes over and you're doing something without gaining a paycheck, you still have this the opportunity to, as you go. I think in America, so many people think I hang up my hat. I quit punching a time clock. I no longer have a purpose. What is your perspective on that for the listener here? Because I think that's a huge encouragement to them, that they're not done.
Victor Dawson: No, they're not done at all. And the first part of this, though, is I want to, I wanna explain, and I have done this number of times when I've spoken to groups and the question is, how many of you are in full-time ministry?
There's a group of business people, nobody raises their hand. I said I'm in full-time ministry. I own a company or work for a company, whatever. I don't get a dime from any ministry, but I'm a businessman in full-time ministry. And so that's the perspective you need to have before you retire, quote unquote retire.
But then once you have made that transition or started that transition, you've just got to find a purpose. And it may be that you as you go, your purpose is mine and sharing my faith all the time and discipling people, which is the most satisfying thing I've ever done in life, is discipleship.
Whatever, you need to ask God and pray and seek a purpose in life because without that, you're not gonna do well in your retirement years. As much as we've romanticized it and dreamed about it and worked hard to get there, you're gonna be sadly disappointed when you hit the brakes and you can only play a few more rounds of golf before you lose your mind because you don't feel like you're of any value.
Now here's one other thing I wanted to tell you when you were talking about this a minute ago. One of the challenges that I think most older guys like us, me anyway, they don't think the younger crowd has any interest in them, especially in the last, 20 years, let's say all the technological changes and things that are going on.
What if I'm a 30 something year old guy, what in the world could some 70 or 80-year-old guy have, how could we even have a relationship? My contention is that those 30 somethings are dying to find somebody who's farther down the road, whatever you know, whether it's 60, 70, 80, it doesn't matter, that they can relate to, that they can start a relationship with, that can help them because they are scared to death what's going on, and they don't know how to handle it all. And to find somebody that you can talk to and that you can trust and that you can share your life with. They are desperate to find them. And so all these elderly guys and women, people who think I've hung it up and now nobody's interested in me, that's just a lie.
Jim Brangenberg: And having a mentee in our lives brings new purpose and meaning. , And it's not just us pouring our lives as somebody else. They end up pouring their lives back into us. You shared in detail a story just like that in your book As You Go, and also on an iWork4Him podcast released on the 4th of February, coming up here. This story with Brett Emiluth was powerful and I wanna just give us a brief synopsis of how you got connected to Brett as a mentor and how one day he became a mentor in your life.
Victor Dawson: So Brett had just recently before we met, we've known each other now, we decided for 22 years, which I can't believe, but just before we met, he had rededicated his life to Christ. He was in his early thirties and I felt like God was prompting me to initiate a call with him and see if he wanted to be discipled and using Operation Timothy with CBMC. And so he agreed and we started meeting at a coffee shop near his office on a weekly basis, almost every week for about three years.
He was going through a very difficult time because he wasn't sure he was gonna make it as a financial planner in his first couple of years. And I kept telling him that God loves you more than you can imagine. God has a plan and a purpose for your life, and God wants you to trust him and he'll take care of you well.
He made it through those first few years and then sometime later on he and I had lunch together and he shared with me that he was so desperate during that time that he was gonna fail his family and just have financial ruin that he had strongly considered taking his own life and in such a way that hopefully they'd get the insurance and that if he had not been meeting with me, he probably would've gone through with it.
I was just stunned. I couldn't believe it. He said, you saved my life. Wow. That was incredible. You fast forward a few more years and I was having some real challenges business-wise and otherwise. And one Thursday night, my wife and I had the worst argument I can ever remember, and I spent the night on the sofa in tears and very upset, very distressed, had some similar thoughts of Brett, maybe not quite as seriously, but I was just feeling hopeless and the alarm went off at 5:30 and I remembered I had a golf event that I had to go to. I was on the board of a children's charity and we were having our fundraising and I had already paid my money and invited two or three guys to come.
And so I had to get up and go and on the way to the golf course that morning, Brett called me, which is generally it doesn't happen. He's very busy and I usually initiate the calls and he said, I just had a sense this morning that God wanted me to call you. How are you doing? And I said I'm not doing well at all. He said, let's meet. I'll come out your way. And I said, I'm on my way to this golf event and I won't be done till probably two o'clock. And he said, okay, I'll see you at two o'clock. This is very unusual for him because I was always the one initiating and going near his place of work.
Anyway, I managed to get through this round of golf and all the lunch and everything else, and drove back to the Starbucks to meet Brett at two o'clock, totally drained and exhausted. I got a big hug when I walked in. He said, tell me what's going on. So I briefly shared what had been happening and you just won't believe what he told me.
He said, I need to remind you of something. He said, God loves you more than you can imagine, and God has a plan and a purpose for your life, and God wants you to trust him and he'll take care of you. Thought for a second. I said to Brett, who in the world told you that crap? And he said, you did about a hundred times.
And of course we laughed and I knew that was true, that suddenly the teacher had become the student. And I needed to hear that in the worst possible way that day. He revived the hope and strengthened me to carry on, of course. And I don't think I was nearly as desperate of place as he was, but I was definitely not in a good place that day. And so he stepped up and he responded to God's prompting that he should come and meet with me. And then he shared back with me what I had been trying to teach him 10, 12 years before.
Martha Brangenberg: You not only had the privilege of seeing his growth, spiritual growth and maturity happen, but you actually were able to benefit from his spiritual growth and receive it so beautifully at a time when you needed it.
So God's word does not return void. And in this situation, he walked in that obedience and you were the beneficiary of that. So how incredibly powerful and I hope that our listeners are hearing that. We never know what those relationships are going to, how they're gonna result, what's gonna happen, but intentionally investing in other people with the wisdom and the knowledge that God has given each and every one of us is really what it's all about, taking it to that next generation and the future generations.
And walking in that obedience all because God told you as you go, let's do this. So even in those situations where you might've been at the golf course, riding in a golf cart with somebody you didn't know or that maybe they were having a tough day, that's "as you go" as well.
In those moments, making the most of them, for the kingdom is what it's all about. Have fun, play golf. If you wanna chase around that little ball and spoil a good walk, as we've all heard, right, as Mark Twain said, as Mark Twain says, do it, but do it in a way that gets the focus on the great Commission and what we've been encouraged, not only encouraged - you reminded us it's a command and only 3% of believers are actually obeying that command.
Victor Dawson: Yes. You were talking about, riding in the golf cart or flying on the airplane, whatever you're doing, whether you're at the restaurant or something, there's always something that you can do to start a conversation. And that's the tagline to the book: spark a conversation that impacts eternity.
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.
Victor Dawson: And so I have to admit, and I do claim this in the book, that a friend of mine who was a former president of CBMC actually gave me this idea. I actually did this and I used its story in the book, but I use this all the time. You've never met this guy sitting in the golf cart next to you. And somewhere along the way, early on, you say, are you the reason I'm here today? And they go, what do you mean? I don't understand? I said I prayed this morning that God would lead me to someone that needs to know him better. Is that you?
Martha Brangenberg: Wow. That's a great question.
Victor Dawson: , What I'm teaching, trying to teach people about "as you go" is, there's a whole lot of ways to start a conversation and is you ask somebody, Hey, you recently moved here, have you found a good church?
All these sorts of things, but you don't have to get too carried away, too clever. If you can't think of anything, just say, are you the reason I'm here? And I just had it happen. Actually, we were in Cabo, Mexico, on vacation in December a few weeks ago, and we'd had a sales presentation with this guy and we were waiting for the shuttle bus, and Holy Spirit just prompted me and I turned and said to him, are you the reason I'm here today?
He said, I don't know. Why? We've started a conversation online now, and he actually ordered a copy of my book and I'm expecting him to accept Christ one of these days. Not necessarily because of me, but because I started the conversation.
Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, Victor, we're so grateful. I would encourage everybody to get a copy of this book asyougobook.com, online to get a copy.
Victor Dawson, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for being an example of a chronologically superior person pouring their life into somebody chronologically inferior. Victor Dawson, thanks for being here today on iRetire4Him.
Victor Dawson: Thanks so much. I enjoyed it.
Jim Brangenberg: You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. In this retirement phase of life, we all want our lives to be full of meaning and purpose, so we can say, iRetire4Him.