I’m convinced the Lord’s Prayer is the ultimate prayer tool and the first thing believers should memorize, that’s why I mention it so much in my book When Prayer Is a Struggle. If we can learn how to use this Spirit-inspired prayer tool well, many of our struggles to pray will dissipate.

One of my favorite prayer practices is to simply pray the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13) for something specific. It could be a spiritual battle I’m going through or a person. Let me share two examples of what this means:
1. The Frustrating Coworker
Say there’s a coworker who has been talking bad about you to your boss and coworkers, and people are starting to turn on you at work. (Watch a short video of this example.) Pray like this:

Father, help me glorify Your name in this trial with my annoying coworker in every thought, word, and deed.
Would Your Kingdom come in the life of this man—grant him faith and repentance unto salvation, and would You help me live obediently under Your kingship as I persevere in this trial.
Lord, You know how I want to be vindicated and how I don’t want to lose credibility at work, but would Your will be done in this situation. I submit to You.
Please give me the wisdom, patience, self-control, love, and the words to say in this situation.
Please forgive me for the bitterness and anger that have welled up in me because of my coworker’s sin against me, and help me forgive him as You have forgiven me.
Lead me not into the temptation of wanting revenge, or growing more angry, and deliver me from evil people and the attacks of the enemy who wants me to dishonor You with my actions.

That is just one example of how praying the Lord’s Prayer gives us words to pray to God.
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Perhaps you are convinced that those who are older or who have health issues should be active in serving God, but you find it hard to picture what that looks like. After all, you might not be able to preach or lead a congregation or head to the mission field. If age and health issues are limiting factors for you, what might your service of Jesus look like?

God loves to use the weak to shame the strong
It is a natural thing for us to honour those who are strong and young. Olympic athletes grace the covers of magazines, and younger people advertise beauty products. Even in the church, often it is the university student ministry that is prioritised as ‘strategic’, while ministry to older believers or those with disabilities can be overlooked.
God doesn’t value strength the way that we do. In fact, God seems to love using those who are weak for his purposes. We see this all through Scripture. God chose Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, even though he couldn’t speak well and didn’t want to do it. Jesus chose a ragtag group of men to be his disciples, impetuous men like Peter who were fishermen instead of scholars or aristocrats. Many of the people remembered as having great faith in the gospels are foreigners, women, prostitutes, disabled, or poor.
We might honour the apostle Paul for his tightly reasoned letters in the New Testament, but he was derided for not being very impressive in person[i] and he struggled with a “thorn” problem his whole life. When he asked God to remove this “thorn”, God’s answer was:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)[ii]
In the end, Paul realised it was good for him to have his limitations. His problem, whatever it was, was an ongoing struggle that kept him from becoming conceited. God used someone with significant struggles in his life so powerfully to make it clear that the power came from God and not from Paul. In fact, Paul could conclude that it was when he was weak that he was actually strong. He came to depend on God in his hard times instead of himself.
Paul explained God’s use of the weak over the strong in another place:
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Do you see how freeing Paul’s point is here? You don’t need to be an impressive strong young person to be used by God. God loves to use people who are weak in the eyes of the world for his purposes. You might be incredibly useful to God, not because of your innate abilities, but because people can see the grace of God working through someone like you. There are few things more encouraging to younger believers than to see older saints who struggle with their health remaining faithful as servants of the Lord Jesus.
But what could I possibly do to serve God in my situation?
Perhaps you are convinced that those who are older or who have health issues should be active in serving God, but you find it hard to picture what that looks like. After all, you might not be able to preach or lead a congregation or head to the mission field. If age and health issues are limiting factors for you, what might your service of Jesus look like?
There are examples all around us in our churches if only we would look. Many older people in churches I have been part of have been incredibly faithful in prayer. Even if you have some limitation that means you cannot leave your house, you can pray. Perhaps God has given you the great opportunity to spend more time in prayer than you ever have before! Don’t focus on your limitations; think about your opportunities to serve. A focus on prayer will change you as well as you present your requests to God, reminding you that even in your time of challenge, your Father hears you.
Several retirees I have known have used their extra time and resources well by showing hospitality to others in the church. Inviting others over for meals is a dying tradition for many struggling to balance busy careers with their home lives. Opening your house to others, or taking them with you to a restaurant, can be a great way to show love to other people and encourage them.
With age comes experience and wisdom. Oh yes, I know that even older believers who have been in the church for decades still feel their lack of understanding! But the reality is that if you are older, you most likely have a more robust Bible knowledge and experience of living out your faith than many younger people. Consider how you might use those talents. You could meet regularly with new Christians to read the Bible with them. You could take the opportunity to serve as a Bible study leader or visit others. You can phone people or use email to encourage others. Even with limited energy, there are so many ways you could use what God has given you to benefit others.
If you find yourself with a more severe disability or limitation, even then you can see your situation as an opportunity for service. I have known many Christians with severe disability and chronic diseases to be a magnificent witness to the health staff and doctors who cared for them. If you have carers come to your house to help you with everyday tasks, the way you treat them and interact with them can shine the light of the gospel into their lives. Never underestimate the influence a faithful believer can have on the world around them simply by living a joyful, faithful life in difficult circumstances.
Simon van Bruchem is a Teaching Elder at All Nations Presbyterian Church in Perth, Western Australia, where he has served since 2007.
This is an excerpt from Distinctively Christian Retirement: A Biblical call to serve Jesus well in older age. You can find out more about the book at www.writtenforourinstruction.com/distinctively-christian-retirement/. You can purchase the ebook from Amazon here, Kobo, Apple Books, or anywhere ebooks are sold. The print book is available in many places including Book Depository and Amazon. The audiobook is available at Audible here and soon in many other places as well.

[i] In 2 Corinthians 11:6 Paul admits he is unskilled in speaking, and 2 Corinthians 10:1 implies he is accused of being bold only in his writing and yet humble in person.
[ii] Unless specified, all Bible references are from the ESV Bible (Holy Bible English Standard Version), copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Written by Charles B. Williams |
Sunday, June 11, 2023
In these blessings, we find the description of the citizen of heaven (Phil. 3:20–21), and with it, a heavenly pattern, for it marks the man who recognizes that this world cannot truly satisfy and reminds us that true blessedness is not found in the fading pleasures of all that this fading world offers. And it is here that we see the greatest blessing of all: that this pattern makes us ready for heaven, by molding us into the image of the King of this heavenly kingdom.

At the close of every Lord’s Day, the minister is afforded the tremendous privilege of pronouncing the benediction of our triune God on his assembled people: “May the Lord bless you, and keep you . . .” What beneficence! What boon! What bounty! to become the recipients of the divine favor and protection of the Maker and Redeemer of heaven and earth!
But then Monday comes, and once more we find ourselves engulfed in a seemingly endless wave of tragedies, both personal and corporate: an ailing father, a failed engagement, a divided congregation, a people in turmoil. Have the blessings failed? Has God forsaken his people?
Many of us recognize that divine favor is not materialistic, for the Scriptures never promise a life of influence, ease, or pleasure. At the same time, the sorrows we endure can so overwhelm us that we are left feeling confused and helpless. Bearing under the fury of a world that hates us from without, and the terrors of a conscience awakened to the depth of our own sin from within, such circumstances leave us utterly humiliated and exposed to our own inadequacy. And we ask: where is the blessing?
It is within this context that our Savior addresses his own, a people wounded and wearied under the weight of their estate of sin and misery. Matthew recounts to us those glad tidings Christ has brought as he pronounces the inauguration of the long-awaited kingdom, the blessings conferred upon the recipients of that kingdom, and the mode in which such blessings come as we await its consummation.
A Conflict of Kingdoms
The opening chapters of Matthew’s gospel narrate the irruption of the heavenly dawn into the earthly realm of sin and darkness. Against the backdrop of yet another mock Pharaoh comes one greater than Moses, the virgin-born Davidic Son, upon whose shoulders rest the government of an ever-increasing, unshakable kingdom (Isa. 9:6–7).
For sure, the nation had long awaited a deliverer, but their expectations were too small, too earthly. As Jesus travels from town to town, heralding the kingdom’s arrival, the people expect a political Messiah who will expel the Roman legions from their midst, not the demonic hordes. They hold to delusions of grandeur—of earthly power and prosperity—not spiritual liberation. The citizens want a theonomic revolution and festal buffets, while the rulers want only parlor tricks and magic shows. Yet Jesus’s message of the kingdom, summarized in the Sermon on the Mount, proclaims, not simply a better kingdom, but a different kind of kingdom. As Daniel portended, and as Luther recognized at Heidelberg in April 1518, the difference between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdoms of men was not a difference between dwarves and giants, but between light and dark. It was a difference not simply of size, but of kind. It was the difference between heaven and earth. And as this heavenly kingdom has irrupted into the earthly plane, it operates according to a different set of principles. The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1–12) describe what life as a citizen of heaven looks like here on earth, as that light shatters and scatters the darkness. These blessings take on a particular form, upending Israel’s, and our, expectations.
The Blessings of the Heavenly Kingdom
When we consider the Beatitudes, we must first recognize what they are not. They are not natural dispositions. The great nineteenth century novelists—Hugo, Dickens, and Tolstoy—wrote of the poor, almost as if poverty itself was an unqualified virtue. Today, others do the same, but with respect to particular personality traits. Our Savior, however, does neither. He does not pronounce favor on a particular economic class; nor is he declaring that God’s grace is restricted solely to the morbid, the introvert, or the blissfully naive. Rather, the blessings of the kingdom befall those who have been subjugated by grace and reconciled through the mediation of the Son.
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