You desire health in your body, freedom from pain in your feet and teeth, punctuality, success in all you do, and escape from the grief that clings to memories of your departed father and your mother slipping into forgetfulness. These longings are not strange, but take care lest they become snares. For Christ Himself, standing before the tomb of His friend, did not hasten to work the miracle. He wept, He groaned in spirit, He showed His human nature, yet He deferred the healing that many might see and believe. Your own pains, your delays, your successes, your sorrows, these are permitted by One who seeks not your temporal comfort first, but your eternal soul.
When He healed the paralytic, He afterward found him in the Temple and warned, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” Do not suppose that every ache in the flesh declares a specific sin, but know that God often uses the body’s infirmity to rouse the soul from its stupor. If you run to physicians for your feet and teeth, run first to the Physician of souls. Examine yourself. Is there any secret indulgence, any neglect of alms, any softness that has crept in? For we perish not only by one road but by many, by sloth, by luxury, by the cares of this life. A man may escape the snare of riches and yet be choked by the desire for worldly success. What profit is it to arrive on time at every appointment, if you arrive late to the judgment seat of Christ? What gain is there in prospering in every enterprise, if you suffer the loss of your own soul?
The apostle counted all his former boasts as dung, that he might gain Christ. He did not say, “I counted them loss,” grudgingly, but joyfully, knowing that nothing compares to the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. When you pray for success, ask rather for this: that you may succeed in laying hold of eternal life. If your work is built with gold and silver, it will abide; if with wood and hay, it will be burned, and you will suffer loss, though you yourself be saved, yet so as through fire. Strive then for that which endures.
As for the grief that gnaws at you, your father’s death, your mother’s fading mind, the happy childhood now only a memory, I bid you sorrow, but with a sorrow that brings gain. There is a grief born of the world that works death; it beats the breast and changes nothing, and after it brings deeper affliction. Your tears cannot raise the dead, nor restore the past. But there is a godly grief that works repentance unto salvation, and this you may turn to your profit. Let the shortness of life strike you with holy fear. Let the loss of your parents remind you that you too are a pilgrim, and that true comfort lies not in clinging to shadows but in pressing forward to the city whose builder and maker is God. Honor your father’s memory and your mother’s present affliction by living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Give alms in secret, as your heavenly Father does; visit your mother not merely with tears but with deeds of mercy, and offer prayers for her with a quiet heart.
Do not ask that all pain be removed, but that you be taught to profit from it. When your feet ache, remember the feet of Christ pierced for you. When your teeth trouble you, remember the patience of the saints who endured far greater torments. Instead of saying, “Let me never be late,” say, “Lord, teach me to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom.” And instead of craving success in every endeavour, crave only to be found in Him, not having your own righteousness, but that which is through faith in Christ. Then, whether you are in health or in pain, whether you are early or late by the world’s clock, whether men applaud you or despise you, you will possess a joy that no one takes from you, and you will have gained the one thing needful.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
