My desire to pray when I’m suffering can swing wildly in a single day — and sometimes within the hour. Through the severe trials in my life — losing a child, having a debilitating disease, losing my marriage — prayer has been both arduous and exhilarating. Exhausting work and energizing delight.

In relentless suffering, I can struggle with prayer. More accurately, I don’t want to pray. When I haven’t seen any change, it can feel pointless to pray. So, I avoid it. Or I pray mindlessly. As my motivation fades, my heart slowly drifts from God. When that happens, I first need to recognize the battle raging inside me. Only then can I admit my wandering heart and cry out, “Help me to want to pray!” After that, I follow the Puritan admonition: “Pray until you pray.” I pray until I’m truly talking to God again.

Other times, I want to pray, but I just can’t do it. Praying feels impossible when I’m overwhelmed by pain. I’m either too exhausted, too numb, or too desperate to focus, and I can only manage to plead, “Help me.” I don’t know what I need, or even how to articulate what I’m feeling. In those moments, I can rely on the Spirit with his groans too deep for words. God knows what I need, and the Spirit will intercede for me (Romans 8:26–27).

“Life with God, even when everything is falling apart, can be a place of joy and abundance.”

Still other times, my prayer life blossoms in suffering. I see God provide for all my needs. I sense his presence and pour out my heart to him throughout the day. I find that life with God, even when everything is falling apart, can be a place of joy and abundance. Such connection with God in the storm has led to exquisite intimacy, a mystical communion I will never forget, not because my circumstances were good, or even changing for the better, but because God felt near.

At a Loss for Words

There are also times when I want to pray, but words escape me. When I don’t know what to ask or say, I borrow the wisdom of others. Many mornings, my prayer time has begun with quotes I’ve pinned to my bulletin board to realign my heart. For example:

Lord, do thou turn me all into love, all my love into obedience, and let my obedience be without interruption. (Jeremy Taylor)

Lord, please lighten my load or strengthen my back. (Puritan prayer)

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. (The Serenity Prayer)

Everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds. (John Newton)

“God’s provision doesn’t always mirror my requests, yet his grace unfailingly meets me.”

These words have helped me focus as I add to them my own petitions. I might ask for rescue from my trials, wisdom for my decisions, strength for the day ahead. God’s provision doesn’t always mirror my requests, yet his grace unfailingly meets me. When I ask for a changed situation, I often receive a changed heart. When I ask for wisdom, I often have to proceed without clarity. When I ask for strength, I often still feel weak and uncertain. I have had to move forward in faith, trusting that God will provide what I need. Yet it is trusting God with the unknown, not leaning on my own understanding or even knowing where I am going, that has anchored my faith in him.

T.R.U.S.T.

Besides our pressing needs, what else might we pray for in suffering? The acronym T.R.U.S.T. encapsulates what I need in suffering — what we all need — but often neglect to ask for:

Turn me from temptation.
Revive me through your word.
Use this pain for good.
Show me your glory.
Teach me your ways.

Turn me from temptation (Luke 22:40; Luke 11:4).

Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray that they wouldn’t give in to temptation. Heeding his words means praying before we are tempted, which requires that we know what might derail us so we can be on the lookout for it. While each person’s struggle is unique, in suffering I’ve been tempted to

stop talking to God and subtly move away from him,
want certainty more than I want Jesus,
harbor bitterness toward those around me, even God, and
run from pain rather than staying dependent on God in it.

Revive me through your word (Psalm 119:25).

God has restored me countless times through Scripture. I’ve come to the Bible feeling hopeless and weary, unsure of how I can even make it through the day, and he has revived me through it. God has spoken directly to me through his word, giving me exactly what I’ve needed: reassurance when I’m doubting, comfort when I’m crying, peace when I’m panicking.

But first, I need to open the Bible, which in suffering can feel uniquely challenging. I often resist it at first, as I imagine it will taste like cardboard. So I pray for motivation to read, and then I specifically ask God to give me spiritual eyes to see his truth in it (Psalm 119:18). And then, miraculously, the words become sweet (Psalm 19:10).

Use this pain for good (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28).

Knowing that my pain has a purpose makes it easier to endure. Even when I can’t understand how God could use it for good, I can be confident that he will. I know that God will never allow me to suffer needlessly, and that he has precisely measured out my trials so that not a single drop of my suffering will be wasted. While these truths are unchanging, my prayer is to glimpse what God is doing through my suffering. I’ve seen God use my pain to draw me closer to him, to comfort others with the comfort I’ve received, to increase my endurance and faith, and more.

Show me your glory (Exodus 33:18–19; 34:6).

Seeing God’s glory means seeing, with the eyes of faith, his indescribable beauty and his invisible attributes. His love and faithfulness. His goodness and compassion. His mercy and grace.

When I ask God to show me his glory, part of that request is to see and experience his love. I don’t want to know just intellectually that he loves me; I want to experience and sense his love in my daily life. God demonstrates his love in myriad ways — this prayer is asking him for spiritual sight to see them.

Finally, when we see God’s glory, we know that he is with us. His presence is unmistakable. And that awareness is our greatest need in suffering.

Teach me your ways (Exodus 33:13; Psalm 25:4–5).

We don’t know the ways of God. His thoughts are so much higher than ours, and nothing can compare to his wisdom. Our perspective is partial and imperfect, while God’s view is unlimited and eternal. So when we ask God to teach us his ways, we’re acknowledging that we don’t know what’s best for us and are relying on the one who does. He alone can prepare us for what lies ahead. We need wisdom for our decisions and direction. Do we act now, or should we wait? Do we need courage or patient acceptance? Do we need lighter loads or stronger backs?

The work of prayer aligns our hearts with God and teaches us to trust him for all our needs. In prayer, we ask God to open our eyes to the realities before us — his presence in our lives, his provision for all our needs, and his purposes in our pain. Our deepest need is to find our rest and fulfillment in God alone, and suffering offers a unique opportunity to do that. And when we do, we learn that God really is enough, and that a life of dependence is a life of unending grace.

Audio Transcript

How much money does an American need to retire? That question was in the air this spring after the Wall Street Journal featured a piece by Andrew Biggs titled “You Don’t Need to Be a Millionaire to Retire” (April 18, 2024). In part, he wrote that “according to a new survey from Northwestern Mutual, the average American thinks he’ll need $1.5 million in savings to be financially secure in old age. If that were true, it’d be bad news. As USA Today recently reported, the average U.S. adult has saved only $88,400 for retirement. . . . Among those with [between] $50,000 to $99,999 in savings — a small fraction of what retirees are told they need — 3% found it hard to get by, 11% were just getting by, and 86% were either doing okay or living comfortably.” A big disparity here in the numbers.

Obviously, on this podcast, we don’t get into specific numbers, Pastor John. But you have fielded a lot of questions about retirement, as can be seen in the APJ book on pages 429–439. In building out this theme comes this question from Linda, a podcast listener who is in her late fifties. She wants to know if you have any guiding thoughts on this question.

“Pastor John, hello. Can you share any wisdom for thinking about how much money I should be putting away for retirement? I’m trying to balance being responsible in providing for my future, while walking in faith, and giving generously towards mission, beyond my tithe. I’m a natural saver but also have a tendency towards hoarding money that can be easily provoked when I read that I need to have $1.5 million dollars saved or invested before I can retire. I’ll never reach that level. What would you say to an American in my situation, about seven years from retirement age?”

I think the first thing I would say is that I’m not a trained financial planner, and I am sure there are aspects of finance that I don’t know about and don’t understand, and that, therefore, to give any specific counsel, especially at a distance, would be foolhardy. And I would add how deeply thankful I am that I have trusted advisers around me in my life to help me with these things. I’m not talking just now that I’m an old man and I need some guidance for the last chapter of my life and how to do finances here. I’m talking about all my life.

I remember sitting at the dining-room table with a financial planner — a good friend from our church, but a trained financial planner. I had four small children, and I was asking him to help me think through my financial responsibilities to my wife and children if I die. We did that kind of thinking at every stage of our lives because that need, that financial need, changes with every stage of your life. And you try to think through at every stage, How can I be a good father, a good steward, a good caregiver when I’m gone for my wife and my children if they are bereft of the earning person in this family? So, I certainly would encourage that for others. We all seek help from Bible-saturated, wise people who know the ropes in these things.

“Christians lean toward needs, not comfort. We relieve suffering, especially eternal suffering.”

Then, besides my own limitations, we need to be reminded that there are so many variables in people’s lives that no one solution, no one pattern of handling finances applies the same to everybody. There are family variables and geographic variables and cost-of-living variables and housing-option variables in different cities and health variables. Oh my goodness, there are just so many factors that feed into our planning for how to handle what little or more finances we may have. Everyone’s situation is unique.

So, what should I say to Linda, who is in her late fifties and wants to maximize her giving to missions now, and yet knows that it is probably wise to set aside money for the season when she will not be earning like she is now? And even before I answer that question, I can’t help but say in passing that I am aware that thousands of our listeners from less-developed countries around the world can’t even dream of some of the questions we are posing here because the economic and social structures don’t even exist that allow for this kind of financial planning. But I hope that these precious listeners of ours from around the world will hear underneath what I’m about to say some biblical principles that might apply (I hope do apply) in their situation.

Self-Sustaining Principle

Perhaps the most basic principle about supporting ourselves during the last quarter of our lives is that, inasmuch as possible, we should seek by God’s grace to be self-sustaining. Consider these verses from 1 and 2 Thessalonians:

2 Thessalonians 3:7–8: “You yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.” So, that’s what Paul says they should imitate.
2 Thessalonians 3:12: “Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living” — or literally, “to eat their own bread.”
1 Thessalonians 4:10–12: “We urge you . . . to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”

So, I draw out from those passages the principle that, insofar as we are able, we should earn our own living, pay our own way. And I think that applies from the day we start earning to the day we die. And since we know that we will not be able to continue in some jobs because of mandatory retirement ages that are imposed upon us, and we will be prevented from earning our own living sometimes because of weakening bodies, therefore, we should plan for how we will obey this principle in the last quarter of our lives — namely, to be financially self-supporting. That’s an essential part of the biblical rationale for all the financial instruments that exist for paying ahead for that season of life.

Caregiving Principle

But it is manifestly obvious that millions of people here and around the world will outlive their ability to be independent. And so, the New Testament has another principle — namely, the caregiving obligations of family and church and then (by implication, I think) the social safety net that the wider community may create. So, here’s 1 Timothy 5:16: “If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.” In other words, they don’t have anybody, they don’t have any family to care for them, and the church is going to step in. “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

So, where we are no longer able to be self-providing, God has ordained that families and churches step in. And I suspect that the existence of legally mandatory social security in the wider society is owing to deeply rooted Christian influence that says we won’t throw away our old people but find a way to care for them. I think it’s possible to participate in that system. I’m in it, and still believe that the family and the church have special responsibilities. If you feel like that needs more defense, we can do that at another time.

Ministry Principle

Another biblical principle I would stress is that the Bible has no conception of what Americans typically think of as retirement — that is, working for forty or fifty years and then playing for fifteen or twenty years: fishing, golfing, shuffleboard, pickleball, yard work, travel, hobbies, bucket lists, as if heaven was supposed to begin at 65 rather than death.

This principle relates directly to Linda’s concern about money for missions now and how it relates to her post-earning years. And the way it relates is this: If God is gracious in granting basic health, then wise planning for the last quarter of your life would mean that you keep on giving to missions. It’s not like “I do it now or I don’t do it,” but rather, you keep on from your fixed income. You just keep right on giving to missions. It may not be as much, but you do. And it’s a glorious thing to be able to give at least a little bit if your income is small. You don’t stop giving.

And even more important is this: In that season, that last season of your life, you are on a mission. You’re not stopping life and starting heaven. You are on a mission. You don’t just give to missions; you become missions. You don’t think mainly play; you think mainly ministry. As long as you are able, you lean toward meeting needs. That’s what you do. That’s what Christians do. They lean toward needs, not comfort. Heaven is comfort. This world is racked with pain, suffering, calamity, and needs, and that’s what we do. We relieve suffering, especially eternal suffering. You stay zealous for good deeds right to the end. You magnify Jesus by serving. Heaven is coming. It’s not meant to drag forward. We’re not meant to drag it forward out of the future into the present. It’s meant to sustain hope and ministry.

Now, I know these principles are very general, but I think if Linda and all of us were to think in these ways about the last quarter of our lives, God in his mercy would give us all the guidance we need about the details of financial planning.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to this new week on the podcast on this Monday. Well, 2023 ended with two huge declarations that got a lot of attention online and led to a pile of emails for you, Pastor John. First, and most talked about, the pope said Roman Catholic priests can now “bless” (so-called) same-sex couples, which is a move that confused and angered many Catholics and non-Catholics alike, as you would expect.

According to the Vatican’s statement, this blessing is “for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex, the form of which should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage.” This so-called divine blessing is for “those who — recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of [God’s] help — do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit.” The pope is trying very hard to thread a needle here.

More bluntly, two weeks after this, Reuters reported that Burundi president Évariste Ndayishimiye called on his citizens to respond in a different way. “If you want to attract a curse to the country, accept homosexuality,” he told journalists. Then he said, “I even think that these people, if we find them in Burundi, it is better to lead them to a stadium and stone them. And that cannot be a sin.” This was a statement made to his predominantly Christian nation, perhaps drawing from a text like Leviticus 20:13. So, Pastor John, how would you respond to the pope and the president of Burundi?

Well, let me preface my thought with the fact that I’ve tried very hard to understand the pope and that needle that you said he’s trying to thread. I can’t quite make sense out of it. It just seems contradictory. But let me take it for what I do see.

I think the New Testament directs us away from the kind of blessing that the pope is endorsing and directs us away from the mob rule or the official capital punishment that the president of Burundi is endorsing. In other words, the New Testament is pushing us away from both of those steps.

And I think the New Testament also gives Christians another way to disapprove and another way to love those that we think are walking in behaviors that are ultimately and eternally destructive. So, let’s start with the Old Testament and the threat of the president of Burundi to stone those who practice homosexuality.

Excommunicate, Not Execute

Do the laws of capital punishment in the Old Testament — for things like adultery, dishonoring parents, having sex between two men or two women — define the way that the Christian church is to deal with those sins? And the answer is clearly no.

We’ve had several podcasts in which we try to unpack how the Old and the New Testament relate to each other. And I say that without denying the authority of the Old Testament — with its validity for Israel at the time and its ongoing authority for Christians, with an awareness of how the coming of Jesus the Messiah has changed things.

“When you curse others, you want them destroyed. When you bless others, you want them saved.”

When the New Testament deals with immorality like adultery or incest, which would have been a capital crime under the old covenant, the way it handles that sin — for example, in 1 Corinthians 5 — is to excommunicate the sinner from the church rather than execute the sinner. In the church, the new people of God (which is not a political or ethnic or civil body), excommunication has replaced capital punishment in cases like this.

Blessing Sin?

When we turn to the instructions of the pope that faithful Catholic priests may bless same-sex unions, we need to be very careful how we are understanding the nature of blessing.

I’ve tried, like I said, to understand the wording of the pope’s proposal, and I have listened to a Catholic priest defend the pope’s proposal, and I cannot escape the impression that even though the effort is being made not to consecrate the so-called “irregular situations” as marriage, nevertheless, the very effort to provide an official way for there to be a blessing on a kind of same-sex togetherness, which the Bible warns is evil and eternally destructive, inevitably communicates that the pope does not hold that biblical view, at least not with the same ultimate seriousness that the New Testament does.

And the reason I say that we need to be careful how we understand the nature of blessing is that the New Testament does tell us several times, very clearly,

“Bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28).
“Bless those who persecute you” (Romans 12:14).
“Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called” (1 Peter 3:9).
“When reviled, we bless” (1 Corinthians 4:12).

Now, none of those uses of the word bless is intended to signify an official or unofficial gathering in which you bring people together who in their hearts are celebrating sin. That’s not what blessing means. Whether it’s two men having sex or people celebrating fraud or celebrating witchcraft or celebrating slander or celebrating devil worship, whatever the sin is, the biblical commands to bless our adversaries, our opponents, our enemies are not a command to hold a service in which you extend a hand of blessing over those who are celebrating behaviors that lead to their own destruction and which God calls an abomination.

That gathering will not communicate the biblical truth of heartbreak and danger and warning. If you made those dangers and those warnings part of the service of blessing, we know the so-called couple would reject it. They would reject it. If the warning of hell were made part of the service of blessing, if the sin were called an abomination in the service of blessing, the couple would not have the service.

Longing for Another’s Good

The meaning of blessing in Luke 6:28, Romans 12:14, and the others is that we seek the temporal and everlasting good of our enemies — or those we disagree with; they don’t have to be just enemies, but just anybody we disagree with. That’s what blessing means. We seek the temporal and everlasting good of our adversaries, both with words and with deeds, even if it costs us our lives. We are not eager for the destruction of anyone. Blessing is the opposite of cursing. When you curse others, you want them destroyed. When you bless others, you want them saved.

We want our words and our actions to count for their good. It’s not a blessing to give the impression of treating lightly something that God treats dreadfully. It feels kind — it’s not kind. It feels tender, but tenderness is not love where clarity and firmness are needed to save life.

The form the blessing takes in Romans 12:20 is this: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” In other words, the aim is not affirmation but contrition and repentance and salvation. We want them to be our brothers or our sisters in the presence of God forever, forgiven and transformed into the likeness of Christ.

Final Warning

And before I go, I think I should conclude by warning Roman Catholics that they need to be especially concerned about this pope, Pope Francis, because this is not the first time he has gone astray. He has espoused unbiblical thinking in other ways, not only on this matter.

I watched him in a video counsel a child — about a six- or eight-year-old child — who had lost his father in death. The child said that his father was an atheist — never went to church, didn’t believe in God — and then he asked where he was. And the pope said that his father was in heaven. The pope said that that was the case.

“It’s not a blessing to give the impression of treating lightly something that God treats dreadfully.”

Now, that’s very contrary to what the Roman Catholic Church and all other Christian churches have taught. I doubt that this pope believes anyone will suffer eternally in hell. I could be wrong about that, but if so, then the warnings of 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 — that those who practice homosexuality will not enter the kingdom of God — lose their ultimate seriousness for him. That’s the direction our culture has moved for decades, and that’s where the pope appears to be moving as well.

So, by all means, let us bless those who curse us — but not extend a blessing over a same-sex union.