Silas
Beloved of All
Your honest cry for God's love and comfort and near presence has been heard, and we join you in bringing it before the Lord in the name of Jesus Christ. To walk through many years of hardship leaves the heart weary and wounded, and it is right to ask the Father to meet you again and again with His love.
Scripture calls Him the God of all comfort, the One who comforts those who are cast down and discouraged. The apostle Paul knew this in his own afflictions and dark nights. He tells how the Lord stood by him to strengthen and encourage him, even during a long and violent storm at sea when hope seemed gone. That same Lord stands by those who are going through hard places now. He does not leave you to face the darkness alone, but draws near to strengthen and encourage you, to let you experience His presence and His love in the midst of the trial.
That presence is what matters most. When Moses was led forward, God said, My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest. Moses answered that he did not want to go anywhere without that presence, for he knew what God could do. It is unwise to try to go forward apart from Him. Your desire to know His presence is the wisest prayer you can pray, for where He is there is rest, even while the hardship remains.
You will also find comfort in His Word. His Word gives life and hope when affliction is heavy. You can place your situation into His hands and rest in what He has said about His mercy and kindness. Pray as the psalmist did, let Your merciful kindness be my comfort according to Your Word, and let Your tender mercies come to me that I may live. His Word assures you that His love endures and His grace is sufficient, and that truth can steady your heart when you do not understand the why of the suffering.
You asked for the promise that He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. That picture is of a careful binding of a wound with cloth to help the healing come. It is often a process, not always an instant change. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Messiah coming to bind up the brokenhearted, and Matthew shows that His suffering included our physical sicknesses as well as our sin, so we can rightly bring both body and soul to Him for healing. At the same time, Scripture shows that healing in every case as we expect it is not always His will in this life. Paul prayed three times for his thorn in the flesh to be removed, and the Lord answered with sustaining grace rather than removal. This teaches us to trust His perfect will and timing, and to accept with peace however He chooses to work, whether through deliverance or through sustaining comfort.
Do not forget that the greatest miracle is the salvation He has already given through Jesus, who became poor so that through His poverty you might know the riches of God's grace, who was made sin for us that we might be forgiven. Compared to that gift, all else is small. Through faith in Christ you have entered into the covenant of blessing God made with Abraham, a covenant confirmed and not set aside, that in blessing He will bless you. Those blessings are sure in Christ, even when they unfold in His timing and in His way, not always as we imagine.
So we pray for you now, that the Father would pour His love into your heart, that you would sense His presence near you, that His Word would comfort you day by day, and that He would heal your broken heart and gently bind up your wounds. We ask that, if it be His will, He would bring the victories and blessings you long for in His perfect time, and that whether He lifts the hardship or sustains you through it, you would know His comfort and rest in His hands, for your times are in His hands and He will keep you as long as He purposes. May you experience again and again the touch of His Spirit and the assurance that you are loved and held fast in Jesus Christ.
Scripture calls Him the God of all comfort, the One who comforts those who are cast down and discouraged. The apostle Paul knew this in his own afflictions and dark nights. He tells how the Lord stood by him to strengthen and encourage him, even during a long and violent storm at sea when hope seemed gone. That same Lord stands by those who are going through hard places now. He does not leave you to face the darkness alone, but draws near to strengthen and encourage you, to let you experience His presence and His love in the midst of the trial.
That presence is what matters most. When Moses was led forward, God said, My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest. Moses answered that he did not want to go anywhere without that presence, for he knew what God could do. It is unwise to try to go forward apart from Him. Your desire to know His presence is the wisest prayer you can pray, for where He is there is rest, even while the hardship remains.
You will also find comfort in His Word. His Word gives life and hope when affliction is heavy. You can place your situation into His hands and rest in what He has said about His mercy and kindness. Pray as the psalmist did, let Your merciful kindness be my comfort according to Your Word, and let Your tender mercies come to me that I may live. His Word assures you that His love endures and His grace is sufficient, and that truth can steady your heart when you do not understand the why of the suffering.
You asked for the promise that He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. That picture is of a careful binding of a wound with cloth to help the healing come. It is often a process, not always an instant change. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Messiah coming to bind up the brokenhearted, and Matthew shows that His suffering included our physical sicknesses as well as our sin, so we can rightly bring both body and soul to Him for healing. At the same time, Scripture shows that healing in every case as we expect it is not always His will in this life. Paul prayed three times for his thorn in the flesh to be removed, and the Lord answered with sustaining grace rather than removal. This teaches us to trust His perfect will and timing, and to accept with peace however He chooses to work, whether through deliverance or through sustaining comfort.
Do not forget that the greatest miracle is the salvation He has already given through Jesus, who became poor so that through His poverty you might know the riches of God's grace, who was made sin for us that we might be forgiven. Compared to that gift, all else is small. Through faith in Christ you have entered into the covenant of blessing God made with Abraham, a covenant confirmed and not set aside, that in blessing He will bless you. Those blessings are sure in Christ, even when they unfold in His timing and in His way, not always as we imagine.
So we pray for you now, that the Father would pour His love into your heart, that you would sense His presence near you, that His Word would comfort you day by day, and that He would heal your broken heart and gently bind up your wounds. We ask that, if it be His will, He would bring the victories and blessings you long for in His perfect time, and that whether He lifts the hardship or sustains you through it, you would know His comfort and rest in His hands, for your times are in His hands and He will keep you as long as He purposes. May you experience again and again the touch of His Spirit and the assurance that you are loved and held fast in Jesus Christ.
