Not long ago I spent some time working in our church’s nursery. I’m talking the really little kids…from birth up to when they start walking steadily. Kids at this level spend a lot of time sitting on the floor, grabbing toys and shaking them, asking for snacks, crawling over to grab what somebody else has, etc. For me, it’s a fun age to work with.
It seems like every nursery at church has one of those box-shaped toys where you dump out a bunch of shapes, but then the lid has a bunch of differently shaped holes you try to put the shapes back through. At this age, it’s easy for the kids playing with this toy to get frustrated.
On this particular occasion a little guy was interested in the toy, so I dumped out the contents and showed him, using a shape or two, what was supposed to happen. He got the rough idea, but didn’t yet have the capacity to follow through. It struck me as a metaphor for how God will lead us toward something, but aside from Him we frequently don’t have the patience or the tools to see things through to the end.
With the little guy, I let him give it a try. The circle is the easiest one to make work, so I gave that one to him first. As you might guess, he didn’t use it on the circle hole, he just picked a different opening with a different shape and tried to make it work. When it didn’t go the way he wanted, he started trying to just smash it through. He didn’t even have the fine motor skills to line up the shape with its matching opening, so he resorted to brute force.
I gently guided his hand, still holding the shape, to the right spot. Together we even got the shape partway into the hole; all he needed to do was let go of it and it would fall into the box. I let go of his hand and watched to see what he’d do. To my gentle frustration, he pulled the shape all the way back out. Starting to see the picture, he then tried putting the shape back in the hole, but found himself still unable to do it and started smashing the shape on top of the box again.
It made me appreciate God’s patience with us. Whether it’s “I know you don’t have the tools for this yet but I’m introducing it to you anyway” or “you know, you’re really not getting this, even though you should by now,” He’s got so much patience with us. The patience isn’t limitless, but it’s usually pretty generous as long as we’re giving it an honest effort. On our end we often get frustrated and want to just start smashing things when they’re not working the way we want, but God’s often got a very specific way (and timeline by which) He wants us to get things done.
Try giving it some more patience, and learn to be okay having less control over the method, direction, and timing of everything. He doesn’t expect you to be an expert, or even proficient, at things right away, but if He’s charged you with some specific role, He’ll provide you with the tools and the opportunity to learn how to do the thing He’s asking you to do. Stick with it, don’t get frustrated and start smashing things, and celebrate even the small bits of progress you’re making.
There’s a parable in the book of John which indirectly talks about the value of teamwork in evangelism.
Bringing people to Christ is rarely something that’s done in one sitting. It’s impossible to tell ahead of time who will respond positively to the Gospel, so you have to cast a wide net, be persistent, and not get discouraged when you don’t see progress at the rate you’d like to.
I’ve heard evangelism compared to a frozen bough sagging under the weight of a winter snowstorm. Any snowflake by itself is not enough to make the branch break, but many snowflakes collectively add up to more weight than the branch can hold. Each snowflake represents an interaction with a Christian, a conversation about God, or maybe the “pebble in the shoe” that comes from philosophical questions raised in an unbeliever’s life. While some people simply never choose to believe despite large amounts of “snow” accumulating in their lives, the choice remains theirs, while the duty to keep adding flakes to it remains our responsibility.
John 4:35-38 talks about this evangelistic teamwork:
Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
Teamwork is quite obviously part of the picture here. Maybe you’re sowing, reaping, or doing something in between. Are you actively participating in the sowing/growing/harvesting process? Are you adding individual flakes to various branches? God’s equipped you with talents and gifts for the purpose of bringing Him glory and pointing others to Him. Don’t let those gifts be wasted.
Lord, it’s hard, and it’s scary to be part of this process. It feels like there are so few workers dedicated to “the harvest.” Help me lean in when I feel You pushing me toward specific interactions. Whether I’m laying out the Gospel, having discussions that make unbelievers ponder the concept of intelligent design, or just listening to someone who needs an ear, help me to represent You well and point others to You in a way that honors You. Amen.
I was in 8th or 9th grade when I first took Spanish. When you’re first learning a new language, you’re memorizing a lot of vocabulary, learning sentence structure and gender agreement, and learning how to conjugate verbs. In my first year (Spanish I) there wasn’t a whole lot of emphasis on conversational skills. Our teacher that first year taught us the basics…we could all count to 20 or something like that, sing “happy birthday” in Spanish, ask where the bathroom was, and tell you that John/Juan is handsome and has a beard.
There was a lot more than that, of course, but the teacher was easily distracted. He was a nice enough guy, but he was dealing with a bunch of middle/high schoolers who didn’t really care what he was saying and didn’t always take him seriously. A lot of times he’d just end up telling us stories about his gang days (he didn’t seem like the gang type), singing weird off-key songs in Spanish, or generally rambling in ways that weren’t terribly helpful for learning. The homework from the book, though, helped reinforce the subject matter. We learned the rudimentary stuff from him, but got the actual instruction from the book if we took the time and put in the effort.
The next year we took Spanish II, and most of us had a different teacher. She was stone-faced, man. I had her for a few years, and even though she had a sense of humor, she hardly ever smiled. The first day I had class with her, the bell rang, she shut the door, then walked to a spot in the classroom we could all see and hear her. Without any introduction in English, she said “si me entiendes, levanta la mano.”
I was a little stunned at first, partly because of the drastic change in teaching style. Everybody sat there in confused silence, looking at each other. As I worked through it though, I was able to put together what she had said. “If…you understand me…raise your hand.” It took me a minute, and I figured it out. But when I looked around the room, nobody was raising their hands. With a little bit of a gulp, I slowly raised my hand, and I was the only one in the class to do it. She looked at me with what was probably a mix of disappointment at only one hand among so many being raised, with a mental note of “okay, so you’re the one setting the curve right now.”
I don’t know for sure, but I have my suspicions what she thought of the Spanish I teacher.
Not that I was a stellar Spanish student, but I picked up some stuff over those years in high school. I had two different teachers, plus the text books and the workbooks. When it comes to learning a new language, reading, writing, speaking, and hearing are four distinct skills you need to develop. These things all worked together to reinforce the same thing: being proficient in the language.
With regard to the Christian walk, there are different skills, disciplines, and practices that all work together to make you more “proficient” in your walk with Christ. Reading the Bible, hearing the sermons of a skilled Bible teacher, speaking prayers to the Lord, and immersing yourself in a culture where people practice their faith, if done consistently, will drive you toward a rich walk with God. Of course there are teachers who are more skilled than others, or who have styles that are more effective for one type of personality over another. If they’re exercising the gifts God’s given them, it’s all contributing in some way to a deeper understanding for somebody.
So stay in the Word, stay in prayer, stay in church, and make sure you’re using your spiritual gifts to do the Lord’s work. This engagement is how we help each other out in our Christian experience, strengthening not just our own walk, but each others’ in the process.
If you’ve got kids, you know mealtime can be funny, frustrating, and a whole other host of emotions.
A few years back we were having breaded shrimp for dinner. My son is well known for being pretty quick to eat whatever’s in front of him, whereas his younger sister can take much longer to clean her plate. My son gobbled up everything in front of him and then more or less hung around while the rest of us caught up to him.
My younger daughter mostly ate the sides before starting on the shrimp. Looking around at other peoples’ plates, she saw little leftover bits of shell. When she asked about it, we showed her how to pinch the tails so she could get the meat without eating the harder shell. As she started getting the hang of it, my son spoke up and said “wait, those shrimp had tails?” It turns out he had eaten everything, shell and all, for each of the shrimp on his plate.
Although my son probably wouldn’t like this tie-in, the book of Proverbs describes wisdom as something to be received through instruction. (Sorry buddy, don’t take offense…) “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” -Proverbs 12:15
Sometimes we’re simply unaware that either what we’re doing isn’t the best way to do it, or that we’re missing out on something other people have insight into. Don’t be so impressed with yourself you don’t even take the time to consider that you might be able to listen and learn from others. With a little humility, you can learn from even the people you’d least expect.
The next time someone offers you some insight, don’t be too quick to dismiss it, even if it’s something you already know. People who don’t think like you can often package profound truths in fun ways.
Quite a bit of the Bible covers the idea of trials being used to teach believers to rely more heavily on God. That’s an important concept I think we overlook too often. God wants us to rely on Him. He wants us to take one step at a time even when we can’t see the path things are going to take. I’m going to put a twist on it, though. I’m not saying it will work this way for everybody, but I’d like to share a bit about how it’s worked in my life.
This hasn’t been true 100% of the time, but throughout our marriage, when my wife and I looked around at some of the people we knew who were in a similar life stage as us, we just seemed to have it a little easier. Maybe our version a particular challenge was less complicated, or our loved ones tended to have better health, or we just had trials that were fairly short in duration. It’s certainly been a blessing, but we didn’t want to grow accustomed to it. Concluding that God can take away as easily as He can give, we adopted the saying “to whom more has been given, more is required.” We considered ourselves blessed in certain ways, so we viewed ourselves as able to offer things others could not.
Years back, I finished some schooling I had been working on. It was such a relief! I took a bit to enjoy the sheer amount of free time after completing a years-long endeavor. Soon, though, I felt I needed to give some of that time back to the Lord rather than sitting on the couch and wasting it. I started looking for ways to use the gifts and talents He’s entrusted to me. After struggling for a bit with what that might look like, I settled on an idea. You can poke around the various pages of this blog and see I’ve had a bizarre collection of interesting experiences most people never come close to. I’m also able to write in a conversational, down-to-earth tone that people find easy to understand. The idea for this blog took shape and started getting off the ground, with the work I put into it following the same schedule my schooling previously did.
It didn’t stop there, though. A couple years after the blog started, the world got put on pause as covid spread across the globe. As you recall, the pandemic changed so many aspects of daily life. In our house, I worked from home for a long stretch of time. It was kinda nice…for a little while. Not having a commute was great, but missing out on the back-and-forth with folks at work drove my creativity to find new avenues of expression. A new, outrageous idea started forming. This time gave birth to the idea of a 10-part Christian speculative fiction book series.
To be sure, it’s an audacious goal, especially considering I’ve never attempted anything like it before. I’m excited about the series though, I’ve got the skeleton for the whole thing mapped out and I’m very far along on some volumes, but what I’ve found is that I get bogged down in the writing. I’ve put together extensive notes on each of the volumes, and it’s fun for me to base some of the characters on some of the people I’ve known in person, to write comedy into it, to write powerful emotional scenes, and ultimately point readers to Christ without making it preachy. But…the project has stalled because I simply don’t have the time, energy, or focus (or more accurately, all three at the same time) to make meaningful progress as far as getting words on paper. It’s incredibly frustrating for me to have what I believe is an epic story mapped out, but be seemingly unable to get it into a deliverable format that can reach the masses and become a tool God starts using to reach a new audience. This might sound a bit like I’m inflating my own ego, but in reality I’m simply treating it with gravity and a matter of urgency; I approach it as though the series will be part of what triggers or contributes to a large revival. Going back to the beginning of this post, the stalled nature of the project is something I’d consider a trial in my life.
In this post I’m taking the long way to arrive at this point: even though I’m facing this trial, it’s related to the work I’m trying to do for God’s kingdom, rather than a trial related to my personal life (finances, health challenges, etc.). Of course I’m interested in getting this story out for public consumption as soon as possible, but I believe the challenges associated with that goal come at a smaller cost to me personally than the trials I’d likely be facing if I had decided not to do anything significant to honor God. I believe when people step into the calling God’s given them, He plows the road for them, removing obstacles that would have inflicted some kind of expense on them had they not followed His lead.
God’s going to allow you to face trials in your life. While you obviously can’t escape all of the personal challenges in life, it seems like you get to bypass many of the especially taxing ones when you’re living in the power of God and walking the path He’s invited you to travel. Had I waved off the blog idea and the book series idea, I don’t know what different set of trials I would have faced in the interim, but I’ve also got a certain degree of peace of mind knowing I’m genuinely taking swings at the pitches God’s giving me. I’m in no way qualified to write a 10-part fictional series, but I’m not afraid to give it a try when I feel God’s saying “here, try this.” I’m relying on Him and His timing, and trusting He sees me and has a plan. In the meantime, in the words of TobyMac, “if I can’t walk, then I’m crawling.” I’m still working on it when I can, always trying to move it forward.
I write this to encourage you. If you’re already following the path you feel God’s calling you down, that’s fantastic…keep it up! If, however, you’ve been feeling a sort of “tugging” in a certain direction you can’t explain, and you’ve been avoiding it because there’s at least some aspect of it that simply doesn’t make sense on any level, I’m going to extend a personal invitation to you to give it a try anyway. Paradoxically, the excuses you’ll think of first could be some of the first obstacles to get plowed out of your way when God starts clearing the road in front of you.
God knows you and knows what you’re capable of when He empowers you. You act in obedience, then He clears the road. It’s not the other way around. Try stepping out in faith and see what happens.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. – Proverbs 3:5-6
Back when I worked as a teenaged lifeguard at a Christian conference center, the lifeguards often spent the morning cleaning the pool and running various errands in preparation for opening the pool in the afternoon.
Normally there were four or five of us, and it was fairly common for us to split the different tasks in a given morning. Rather than unlock and then lock the gate again every time one of us entered or left the pool area, we commonly replaced the lock in the gate and set it so it looked like it was locked when it actually wasn’t. It was important, though, that if there was ever a time when all of us left the pool area, the last one out secured the lock for real.
One morning I left the pool area to head to the resort’s main office for something. As I walked into the foyer of the dining room on my way to the office, I passed a couple of guys who were talking to the dining room hostess. One of the guys was very tall (probably in the 6’5”-6’6” range) and probably at least 240 pounds. She was on the shorter side, which made the guy’s size more pronounced.
As I was walking past, the guy was asking something like “is it okay if we go swimming in the pool before we come in the dining room to eat?” The way he asked it, he made it seem like he was thinking down the road to later in the day/week; the pool was only open in the afternoon and it was fairly common for people to hang out in the pool until it closed, then go right from there in wet swim trunks to the dining room for dinner. He seemed more courteous than most by asking. There was something more to it, though. There was something subtle about the way he asked it that made it sound a little off. She had no problem with the swim trunks thing since a lot of people did it anyway, so she shrugged and said “sure.”
I continued to the office to do whatever I was going to do, then not long after I headed back toward the pool. As I came around the corner, I saw these two guys swimming in the water, and there were no lifeguards around to stop them (or help them out if the need arose). I had no idea where the guards had gone, but right now they were nowhere to be seen. There in the gate, though, was a lock that wasn’t fastened.
I forget what I said, but I made it abundantly clear they had to get out. They gently protested, saying they had received permission from a staff member to go for a swim. Technically, that was true, kind of, but that staff member didn’t actually understand what was being asked, nor did she have the authority to grant their request. It was only coincidental that I happened to witness this exchange that I understood what they were talking about. Now it made sense that they asked in a manner that could be interpreted a couple different ways.
I was pretty peeved about this. It felt like there was intentional deception involved. I wasn’t laid back about kicking them out, I was pretty to-the-point. I stood by the gate the whole time, with it wide open while they got out of the water and collected their things. Then as they drew near the gate, the size of the big dude once again became apparent. I was probably 16 or 17 years old, around 6’3”, and about 180 pounds. I wasn’t a little guy, but if this dude decided he didn’t want to comply, there wasn’t a whole lot I could’ve done about it. As they passed me, the big guy stopped very close to me and just kind of stared me down for a moment. It’s not often I have to look up at somebody. Then he took a step closer, so our faces were only inches apart. If this guy wanted to throw down, he could’ve throttled me. Something about his demeanor told me he was just trying to get me to back down. I sure hoped my judgment was right. I didn’t flinch, blink, or step back. After a very anxious few moments on my end, he walked out of the pool area.
You’d better believe that gate was locked within the next 30 seconds.
In a way, this guy reminds me of Satan. By every measure Satan has the capacity to harm you and the advantage he needs to do it…size, power, speed, drive…but he’s limited in the sense that he has to seek permission to cause you physical harm.
One thing he does NOT need permission for is to mess with you. He can harass you. He can snipe at you. He can do lots of stuff to make you have a really bad day, and he can do it repeatedly, in an effort to get you to back down, to get discouraged, to quit whatever you’re doing for the Lord’s sake. He can intimidate you to no end if you permit it, but if you belong to Christ, you can confidently stand your ground and not flinch when those intimidations come.
If you’re following God’s lead and doing things contributing to His kingdom, you’re making yourself a target in the realm of spiritual warfare. Don’t let it get you down. View it as encouragement that you’re doing something important enough to be considered dangerous to the powers of darkness. After all, why would the bad guys waste time harassing someone who’s not a threat to them?
God, it’s so easy to fixate on only the things I can see and hear. Help me remember there’s more than what I can see, and that if I’m living for You, You’re in my corner and are helping pave the way for where You want me to go. Help me recognize and be an encouragement to others that might be experiencing some of that intimidation and harassment. I ask in Your name, Amen.
There’s a story in 2 Kings chapter 5 we can all learn from.
Naaman was a great General, a mighty soldier, that his king viewed as a great and honorable servant. Naaman was a rich man, accustomed to walking the great halls of the high levels of society, and was constantly around the finer things of life. Unfortunately for him, he had a disease no amount of money could cure him of: leprosy.
He caught wind of someone in Israel who supposedly had the ability to perform medical miracles, and when he told his king about the prospect, the king facilitated his journey. Naaman brought an excessive amount of money and gifts to the land, ready to perform all kinds of bizarre rituals or to complete difficult quests for the sake of being healed. Skip ahead to when Naaman arrived at the prophet Elisha’s door, he expected to be received with the rolling out of the red carpet, then be given a personal ceremony where Elisha prayed and performed some kind of dramatic routine, then be healed supernaturally.
Instead he got something much different. Elisha didn’t even bother to meet him. He sent a messenger instead. “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”
Naaman was furious. Didn’t this prophet know who was standing here at his doorstep? The Jordan River was dirty and muddy, and there were far more prestigious rivers where he came from in Syria. He could have easily washed in one of those if that’s all it took! He stormed off in anger.
While he was still livid, his servants approached him. They said something to the effect of “hey Boss, not for nothing, but when you came here, you were prepared to do all kinds of elaborate or crazy things if this guy told you to. If he told you to do something easy, why not give it a try? What’s the worst that could happen?”
The text doesn’t really say how much Naaman deliberated over this; it just says he went down and did what Elisha told him to do. And wouldn’t you know? “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” I wonder sometimes if we make things too difficult. I think a lot of us know God can use us for mighty things if He chooses, but we don’t often think about the easy things or the small things.
One of my favorite lessons from the Bible is the idea of God saying “if you’re not faithful in the little things, why would I trust you with the big things?” What if, instead of looking for that big dramatic thing that happens infrequently, we focused on trying to be faithful and willing to do the small things on a regular basis? My worry is that we might spend so much time on the sidelines waiting for something “truly worthy of our standing” that we miss smaller opportunities God places in our path much more often. Let’s grab the opportunities that are already there instead of waiting for the ones that might come along further on down the road.
Little kids can be fun, man. Years ago I was playing with my youngest two, my son and my younger daughter. While I was in the midst of an intense Nerf shootout with my son, my daughter walked right through the hail of orange-tipped little blue bullets, serving me pretend soup. As I lunged out from behind cover to retrieve ammo laying on the floor, she brought me odd combinations of sides, asking me what else I needed or would like. Any time I asked for a spoon, a napkin, or anything else, she walked unafraid through the fire to get whatever was missing, all while my son tried to land kill shots on me.
It’s interesting to see how sometimes God will take people with hugely different combinations of spiritual gifts and interests and put them in a situation that weirdly works. You might find yourself teamed with others who can easily do things you find very difficult. Likewise, you could be the one to effortlessly provide the missing ingredient to an incomplete situation. Strange as it may seem, God saw it coming, and made arrangements for you to work together.
So the next time you find yourself partnering with someone with a totally different skillset and focus than you do, don’t focus on the weird; celebrate the variety of talents and interests, and that you get to be part of something that expands your horizons a little bit.
Let’s get practical for a bit and talk about retirement. For some, it’s a long way off. Others may have already begun.
While finances certainly aren’t the only consideration, they’re often the most important factor behind any given individual’s ability to move into retirement. This post isn’t going to solve all your retirement problems, but it might point you to a unique opportunity that will help you years from now.
For most people, an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) or a 401k through an employer are the most accessible ways of saving for retirement. That’s where you set aside a certain amount of pre-tax money from your paycheck into your retirement account. It saves you money on taxes right away (by reducing your taxable income), but you’ll have to pay taxes on it later. You invest it for years, and the balance (hopefully) grows, and then as you withdraw it from the account during retirement, Uncle Sam finally gets his bite at the apple.
On the flip side is something called a Roth IRA. This is a retirement account where you use money from your take-home pay (you’ve already paid taxes on it) to put in your retirement account. Your investments grow (hopefully) over time, and then when you need to start withdrawing money from that account in retirement, there’s no need to pay taxes on the withdrawals because you’ve funded the account using money that’s already been taxed.
Ideally you’d want a mix of both types of accounts as you approach retirement. Many people only have 401k assets. The tricky part about them is they’re a little misleading. Whatever balance you see in that account is not actually the amount you get to use for your expenses; depending on your tax bracket, Uncle Sam could take a huge bite (in addition to state taxes). One nice thing about a Roth IRA is that the amount you see in your account is what you get to keep (minus any fees from your administrator, etc.).
The biggest question then is: “should I invest in a 401k or in a Roth?” The mathematical answer is: it depends on when you’re likely to have the lower amount of taxable income; if you’re in the lower tax brackets right now (10-12%) and can afford to contribute to retirement accounts, pay your taxes now (use a Roth IRA). If you’re in a moderate or higher bracket right now and you expect to have lower taxable income in retirement, it probably makes sense to delay paying your taxes until you withdraw cash from the account (use a 401k or traditional IRA).
Early in this post, though, I mentioned a unique opportunity. Right now the U.S. probably has the lowest federal income tax rates we’re going to see for a very long time. With the amount of debt we as a nation are carrying right now, it actually doesn’t make sense that our income taxes are as low as they are. I personally find it difficult to believe I’ll ever see lower tax rates than what we currently have. If you believe politicians are more likely to raise future taxes than they are to lower them, you might consider doing what’s called a Roth conversion.
A Roth conversion is the process of converting pre-tax (401k/traditional IRA) retirement money into retirement money that won’t be taxed again. You’re essentially using a special maneuver to pay taxes on the money being converted, eliminating the need to pay taxes on that money in the future. You move the money administratively, and then you settle up with the tax man when you do your annual taxes by the following April 15th tax deadline. There are a few important things to keep in mind, though.
Even though it’s for retirement, the amount of money you convert counts as taxable income during the tax year the conversion occurs. If you’re single and have $60,000 of taxable income, then you convert $10,000, not only is your taxable income now $70,000, but you’ve actually also elevated part of your income into the next tax bracket. For that demographic, income above $64,200 gets taxed at a higher rate. If you’re going to do a Roth conversion, keep an eye on what the conversion amount is going to do to your total taxable income for the year. You may want to strategically spread out the conversions over several different tax years.
You should have cash on hand to pay the bill come tax time. Don’t try to convert a chunk and assume you’ll end up with a smaller percent of it because the taxes get withheld from it. It doesn’t work that way. It’s like any other reason you owe taxes come April 15…you need to pay what you owe, and you don’t ordinarily do it using retirement money. Only do a Roth conversion if you’re going to have cash on hand to pay the extra tax. If you’re in the 12% tax bracket, every $500 you can throw at a Roth conversion will get you $4,167. If you’re living in the 22% bracket that same $500 loses some oomph; in that bracket $500 will only get you $2,273. Before the tax rates we currently have, the 12% bracket would have been the 15% bracket (and you’d only have converted $3,333 rather than $4,167 for every $500) and the 22% bracket would have been the 25% bracket (netting only $2,000 instead of $2,273 for every $500 you spend).
It’s probably not a good idea to convert 100% of your retirement assets into the Roth category. Even though you’d effectively have zero income to report to the IRS come tax time, the standard deduction still gives you some money tax free. For 2026, the standard deduction for single filers is $16,100 (and twice that for married filing jointly). If you spend the money to convert everything you’ve got into Roth assets, you’re foregoing an opportunity to get a free pass on that amount of taxable money. Married couples can take up to $32,200 from their 401k without paying any federal taxes, and then on top of that still have quite a bit of cap space to further convert additional assets to Roth at a low tax cost if they have spare cash on hand. Additionally, now through 2028, people 65 and older get an additional $6,000 deduction on their taxes. (You can also use charitable donations from your 401k/IRA to satisfy your Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs).
This discussion is for federal taxes only; it doesn’t consider state taxes. States vary widely in their taxes, especially when it comes to determining whether or not to tax your social security benefits. Converting a big chunk of retirement money might force you to pay taxes on your social security when you otherwise wouldn’t have needed to, or increase your out-of-pocket Medicare costs, and that’s probably moving you in the wrong direction.
Talk to a professional advisor/tax preparer to get the best advice on your particular situation.
You gotta have fun at work, man. I know not every job is amazing, but it’s the people that make all the difference. You often spend more of your waking hours with your coworkers than you do with your own family. Might as well try to have some fun in the process, right?
It’s been awhile since I had this kind of fun at work, but back when I worked as a lifeguard, we’d spend the morning cleaning the pools, swimming laps, practicing rescue techniques, doing chemical treatments, straightening up chairs, mowing the grass, doing preventative maintenance, etc., and then we’d open the pool in the afternoons. But sometimes…we’d just plain goof off.
Right around that time, disposable underwater cameras hit the market. I think I grabbed one or two each year I worked as a lifeguard, and we usually came up with some wacky stuff. Pictures started out pretty generic and got more creative or complex over time. At first they’d just have one or two people in them, doing a stupid pose in shallow water.
Then we got more ambitious and brought in more people or prepared more elaborate setups. In the course of doing do, we learned a few things. We learned the best pictures came when the photographer didn’t let their own bubbles get in front of the camera. We learned the more people you were trying to pose, the trickier it became to get them all into position at the desired time. Some people couldn’t hold their breath very long, other people took such a huge breath that they’d start floating to the surface before the picture got snapped. We had two different pools, and we normally did pictures in whichever one had the better water clarity. If that happened to be the deep pool, we also learned it was tricky to get everyone all the way to the bottom and have them stay there for long.
I’m not suggesting you organize a pool party with your coworkers (I mean, unless you want to). I’m saying as long as you’re getting your work done, try to have a little fun in the process. Morale counts for a lot. The person you’re working with is probably not going to become your best friend, but if you can improve things from “bristling at the sight of them” to “getting along with them” or “laughing along with them,” your work day is going to go a lot better. Similarly, imagine how much better things would be if you can graduate from “counting down the days until retirement” to “eh, it’s not so bad” or better yet “yeah, parts of the job aren’t great, but the people make it alright overall.” Anticipating the drudgery of work will suck the life out of you. The whole equation changes when your workplace isn’t a place you dread.
