“Authentic desire for change is a desire which puts into question what I now am, recognizing incompletion, poverty; so it also puts into question what I think I want.  If I acknowledge lack, I acknowledge an inability to prescribe exactly what will supply that lack. There is a fundamental level at which I have to say, almost nonsensically that I do not and cannot know what I want” ( Resurrection, 77).

What has kept me from offering my life to Jesus is the idea that he wants to exploit me. The hero stories of prophets and missionaries show they gave over their identities and dreams to do God’s work. They cancelled all their plans, goals and bucket lists to serve God. I have never wanted to be emptied like this.

Williams distinguishes between what we think we want from what we really want. Ultimately God wants to give us what we really want, but we have to see the superficiality of our desires. We have to reckon with not knowing who we are and what we really want. This sounds like a condescending parent scolding us to say “You only think you know what you want.” Of all that I don’t know, I should certainly know what I want.

The big question renews itself as I retire from a 45-year career as a teacher. The alleged primary goal of retirement is to fulfill the “bucket list,” all the things I have been denied in my work career: travel, baseball games, writing, reading, a little carousing.  These are the delayed gratifications of life, for which we work endlessly to deserve.

The secondary goal of retirement is to give something back to God or the world that nurtured me, that allowed me to stop working in my twilight years. Maybe teaching, but less strenuously, maybe volunteering, maybe some leadership in church, maybe mentoring a young person just getting started.

It seems to be a case of choosing something from column A (primary goals) and something from column B (secondary goals). When I make the choice this way, retirement does not seem that different than work. Maybe I spend more time on my primary goals and less on the secondary, but it is all about a balancing act.

I don’t want my retirement carved up the same way my work life was. I worked hard to get here, and I want to be doing what I want 24 hours a day. I am not about deferring gratification anymore. I have spent a lifetime doing that. Besides, how long do I have to enjoy the good life? If I have twelve months left, I want to believe I made the most of them.

So it comes back to what I really want, and whether I even know what I really want. I don’t. I only know I don’t want God to usurp what I think I want to do what he knows I want. But I have learned a few things about what I think I want.

A year ago I was a widower, contemplating retirement, dividing my summer between primary and secondary goals. The secondary was satisfying: teaching a summer institute for teachers. But I was also giving over the responsibility of teaching the summer institute to my successors. I was in career withdrawal. For my primary goals I traveled to Stratford to see some plays and then to Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame) and the Berkshires (more plays and concerts). It was fun, but a little lonely. I wanted companionship, and I wanted a sense of direction.

I spent the fall looking for these on Match.com, and the companionship was fun, but the sense of direction was missing. When I met Victoria in November the fun and the purpose came together, and suddenly I felt like my life was going somewhere, but not sure where. What I realized was that real fun involved real purpose. Dating women with the prospect of a relationship was not nearly as much fun as dating a woman in a growing relationship.

And I learned that God knows how to give me good things. Match.com gets maybe 20% of the credit for giving me this relationship, the rest belongs to good luck, or what I call Grace. God knew what I wanted and arranged for me to seize it. There was no way I had found Victoria in St. Louis through my own ingenuity. Our meeting was a gift, for which I can not give enough thanks to God.

What, then, do I want for retirement? Something from Column A and something from Column B? Not good enough. I want a retirement that combines fun and purpose in a way I can not imagine. I have learned that God knows how to give me good things, things I can not imagine, and I want my retired life to be whole. I want to know the depths of my desire, the depths God knows better than I do.

Life is not about giving up your desires, but finding out how your desires fit into God’s purpose for you. You have to believe that God’s purpose is not going to compromise what you really want, that God is all about giving, not taking away.

The mystery of the resurrected Jesus is that the kingdom is coming in forms we have not imagined. Jesus reveals our role in that kingdom with a promise of fulfillment. We will want what we get. That is the Gospel, and my plan for retirement.