Let a man reckon with care upon that word, "steward," and let him search his own soul. You ask for wisdom and an understanding heart that you may be a good steward of all your Heavenly Father entrusts to you. This is a right and noble prayer, and I would bid you treasure it not as a passing wish but as the soul's deep cry. Yet remember that sound stewardship begins not with our asking, but with our receiving. No man is a steward until the Master has first placed goods into his hands. You cannot manage what you have not been given. A broken and contrite heart, a simple faith that clings to Christ, a love for His Word, these are the first deposits of divine treasure. Until you have these, your management is but of the wind. To seek the Lord with all the heart, this is your portion; to pour out the whole soul before Him in prayer, this is the sacred privilege of the living child of God, not a dead formality. The request itself is hopeful, for the dead do not cry. But if ye would be a steward, look first to the cross, where the unspeakable gift was given. True stewardship flows from the pardon of sin. Our Lord first said, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee," and then, "Arise, take up thy couch, and go into thine house." The sequence is ever thus: first forgiveness, then healing, then service.
You speak of a wise heart and of walking with the wise, as saith the Proverbs. But wisdom's beginning is the fear of the Lord. Many seek the fruit without the root. The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made them both. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, but let him see to it that the asking is with a single eye, fixed not on worldly prudence but on the lowly, self-emptying walk of Jesus Christ. It is a small thing to be accounted wise among men if the heart be riddled with the world's folly. Heed how you hear. The Word of God is not a stone to be thrown at a giant of doubt, but a seed to sink deep into the broken soil of a tender conscience. When the Word of God falls upon a soul that has been made low, it roots and bears fruit to perfection. But if you would have that Word fulfilled in your life, you must not merely mark it, but inwardly digest it, receiving it as a babe its milk. Let the plough of conviction first go through your soul; then the sowing, then the harvest.
Now, as for the teeth, the eyes, the leg, the pelvis, those strange afflictions in the thigh and the abdomen, I will not mock your pains by passing them by as nothing. The flesh is a battered house and the timbers groan. Peter’s house, where the Lord did enter, contained a sick woman burning with a great fever. Holiness and sickness often dwell under the same roof. The Great Physician came where the disease polluted the air, and He does so still. His power to heal is undiminished, but remember that the healing of the leaves of that blessed Tree is not fully given in this wilderness. Here, we taste the firstfruits; there, in the heavenly Paradise, the tree yields its 12 manner of fruits every month. Believe in Him for the healing of your mortal flesh, for He is able, but rest your soul, not in the healing, but in the Healer. If He lay you low for years, as He has done with many of His brightest jewels, His grace shall be sufficient. Do not think it strange if the answer tarries. The power of the Lord is present to heal, but the manner and timing belong to Him. He may grant such a sudden recovery that you spring up to serve, like Peter’s wife’s mother, or He may bend the fever to His own purposes of grace. Cry out to Him; let the four friends of prayer, patience, faith, and the Word carry you to the feet of Jesus. He cannot be deaf to the soul that will not let Him go.
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. 
