There is much that is hopeful and commendable in the petitions you have set before the Lord, for you ask not for riches nor for honor, but for a wise and understanding heart that you may be found faithful in your stewardship.
Remember this main point of stewardship, that nothing is your own, it is all your Master's. All that you have, whether health or strength or mind or substance, is entrusted to you, and you are to labor with it for the good of all your brothers and sisters in Christ, and for the glory of Him who will come and require an account. Take heed that you do not injure that stewardship by idling or trifling or growing careless or leaving your heart out of your work, for to trifle with divine truth and to play with God's Word will mar any man's service. But to keep your heart in your work, to seek the Lord with your whole soul, to pour out your soul before Him in prayer and to receive His Word into an understanding heart, this is good stewardship, and it is that which you have desired.
You do well to ask for wisdom according to the Word which says, Walk with the wise and you will become wise. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. The path of wisdom is beyond the understanding of the vulture's eye and the lion's whelp, it is not found by mere human eloquence or mortal skill, but God reveals it. Therefore take heed what you hear and how you hear. There are many who hear the truth of God with one ear and it goes out the other, and they never think of understanding that which they attend to under the name of religion. But faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, and the Word becomes sanctifying only as it is received into the understanding. Pray then that the Lord would give you an attentive ear and an understanding heart, that you would not only hear but consider what you hear, and that the Lord would give you understanding in all things. Walk with the wise, keep close company with those who love the Scriptures, and above all walk close with Christ Himself, for the least thing about Christ is healing and wisdom.
And concerning your bodily afflictions, we bring them before the great Physician, for we very speedily care for bodily diseases and they soon urge us to seek a physician for healing. Know that there is an abundance of healing power in Jesus Christ and His salvation. Not only is His fruit sweet and nourishing, but the leaves, the little things as it were about Christ, are full of healing virtue. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and these healing leaves change the life blood and make the nature other than it was before. Healing and forgiveness are placed in happy conjunction in the gospel, and when Jesus healed the sick of the palsy He said, Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you, so that pardon and healing were one. Tell your case to Jesus just as you would mention a physical case to a doctor. He is ready to hear it all and to consider it. Make a confidant of Jesus.
Let us pray together for you, that the heavenly Father would grant you a wise and understanding heart to be a faithful steward of all He has entrusted to you, that He would draw you to seek Him with all your heart and to pour out your whole soul before Him, and that He would give you grace to learn effectively in His Word, holding it not as a notion but as a work of God in the soul. And let us pray that the Lord, whose is the healing balm of Calvary, would lay His hand upon you for healing, upon your teeth and especially the upper wisdom tooth on the right, upon your eyes, upon the entire left leg and the left side of the pelvis, upon the ball in the upper part of the left leg in the thigh and the ball on the abdomen, and upon your stomach, intestines and gastrointestinal tract, that He would restore you according to His perfect will and make you whole. We ask that whether by His immediate touch or by the use of means, His healing virtue would be made manifest in you, and that with healing of body He would give you that deeper healing of soul which is pardon through His blood.
May the Sun of Righteousness rise upon you with healing in His wings, and may you be kept faithful till your Master comes, to be found a wise steward who has walked in the way of understanding. In the holy name of Jesus Christ we ask these things. Amen.
