I hear your cry for the healing of your left ear, and it is right to call upon the name of Jesus Christ, for He alone holds power over every affliction. Consider the multitude of ways He sought to awaken those who witnessed His works: He cast men to the ground, yet He also healed the servant’s ear. By that very act, He gave assurance of His power, showing from every quarter, both things present and things to come, that nothing is beyond His command. If He could restore that ear in the garden, can He not also restore yours?
Yet remember that great good is Faith, and it is especially when we fall into perplexity that we are delivered, even if our condition seems desperate. When the Israelites stood unarmed before the sea and the pursuing army, with destruction on every side, they were saved from impossibilities. That which was spread under them as dry land overwhelmed their enemies as a raging sea. Nature forgot its course and even armed itself against the foe. So too, if your ear troubles you and the cause is unknown, let this perplexity drive you not to despair but to a firmer trust. God often permits such anguish to test and prove our hearts, so that hearing of sad things we might learn manfully to bear them.
Do not, however, fall into the error of those who think godliness is a means of gain only when it brings health and ease. Godliness with contentment is great gain, not when it possesses all it desires, but when it rests in Him even without it. We brought nothing into this world and we shall take nothing out of it. If a wild beast rends a sheep, you are grieved; how much more should you care for your own flesh? Yet even if this ailment persists, it is open to us to profit from the present life while not living for it. You can use this very weakness to bear fruit, living in the flesh by faith, which is the fruit of your work.
Why, then, does Christ sometimes allow us to hear such troubling things repeatedly, like the disciples who were told again and again that He would depart? He does this to cast down the soul that is anguished, yes, but only to render it more proved and to accustom it to bear separation from comfort. If those disciples were rebuked for not understanding His words, let us not be like them, ever hearing the same things yet remaining in the same condition as if we heard no one. Inquire closely: this very trial is a consolation, for it declares that your end is not destruction but a kind of translation toward Him.
Therefore, continue to cry out in the name of Jesus Christ, for He has not used strictness toward us as a law without mercy, but left the choice to our discretion. Be chaste in your conduct, abstain from every excess, and do not think it a small thing to neglect the care of your own body which is a temple. Yet do not make this healing your only aim, as though godliness were a means of gain. If He heals you, glorify Him; if He delays, glorify Him still. For in all things He seeks to awaken you, and even a lament over unthankful men shows the depth of His healing care. Trust, then, in the Light that lighteth every man, and let not your ear be more precious to you than the salvation which works in you a faith more tried and true.