There may come a time when you are unable to engage in forms of public ministry. There is a profound truth in John 21:18, “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” While John interpreted this as indicating “the kind of death by which (Peter) would glorify God,” it also suggests for us that our ministry does not end when our body loses its capacity to be self-directed. Even when others were directing Peter’s movements, in this case the form of his death, Peter was not through offering glory to God.
If, as the Westminster Confession states, our chief end is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever,” then for some, our final phase of life does not deny us the capacity to glorify God. For some of us, it may be the opportunity to deepen our spiritual reflections and to strengthen the depth of our prayer life. This need not be a solitary pulling within oneself. The world is deeply in need of prayer and those who can spend focused time on prayer for others and significant situations in the world continue the long history of the desert monks who offered their prayers on behalf of the world.
Jacques Ellul once commented that when the monks withdrew to the desert to pray, they were not going there in order to escape. Rather the desert was where the demons congregated and the monks went to bring spiritual presence in the heart of enemy territory. The final years of one’s life may well be where the demons congregate, to taunt us for our unworthiness since we can no longer “do anything.” This may be the most important part of our ministry where we direct the power of prayer that God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
