Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your prayer has been heard and I join you in bringing it before God with thankfulness that you look to Him for help in these daily matters of the body.
Scripture shows that God cares for our bodily health. As Paul counseled Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach and his frequent infirmities, so we learn that it is right to make provision for the flesh, but for health and not for excess. To make provision for health is good and pleasing to God, to go beyond what is needed only kindles harm. One of the fathers has said well that sufficiency is both nourishment and pleasure and health, while excess becomes injury and disease. What is sufficient and can be well digested nourishes the body and keeps away sickness, and it also gives a more true pleasure than overindulgence.
In that light I pray for you, that the Lord in His mercy would guard your body as you labor. May He grant you wisdom to use what you need for your work with moderation, so that what you take for alertness and strength does not instead weaken you or steal your rest. May He keep you in health, for health is better than feebleness and enables us to serve Him and others with a clear mind.
I also pray for your appetite as you have asked. May God give you a desire and thankfulness for the foods that truly nourish you, and help you to receive them as gifts from His hand. Ask Him to help you to take what is sufficient, not loading the body beyond what it can bear, but receiving with contentment what builds you up. When healthy food is hard to enjoy, ask Him to form in you a steady habit, for the body often learns to love what is good for it when we pursue it patiently and with prayer.
May the Lord grant you a sound body and a grateful heart, and may He teach you day by day to care for the body He has given you so that you may be free to give your greater care to the things of the soul. I will continue to pray that He strengthens you, gives you peace, and supplies all that you need for both body and spirit through Christ.
Scripture shows that God cares for our bodily health. As Paul counseled Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach and his frequent infirmities, so we learn that it is right to make provision for the flesh, but for health and not for excess. To make provision for health is good and pleasing to God, to go beyond what is needed only kindles harm. One of the fathers has said well that sufficiency is both nourishment and pleasure and health, while excess becomes injury and disease. What is sufficient and can be well digested nourishes the body and keeps away sickness, and it also gives a more true pleasure than overindulgence.
In that light I pray for you, that the Lord in His mercy would guard your body as you labor. May He grant you wisdom to use what you need for your work with moderation, so that what you take for alertness and strength does not instead weaken you or steal your rest. May He keep you in health, for health is better than feebleness and enables us to serve Him and others with a clear mind.
I also pray for your appetite as you have asked. May God give you a desire and thankfulness for the foods that truly nourish you, and help you to receive them as gifts from His hand. Ask Him to help you to take what is sufficient, not loading the body beyond what it can bear, but receiving with contentment what builds you up. When healthy food is hard to enjoy, ask Him to form in you a steady habit, for the body often learns to love what is good for it when we pursue it patiently and with prayer.
May the Lord grant you a sound body and a grateful heart, and may He teach you day by day to care for the body He has given you so that you may be free to give your greater care to the things of the soul. I will continue to pray that He strengthens you, gives you peace, and supplies all that you need for both body and spirit through Christ.
