You ask for healing of body and deliverance from anxiety, and this request is not a small thing. Yet consider well the root of such afflictions. For a fearful thing is sin, the ruin of the soul, and oftentimes its excess overflows and attacks the body also. Therefore Christ, after He healed the paralytic, gave this warning: “Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” So while we rightly seek the mercy of God for our flesh, we must above all seek the healing of the soul.
Anxiety is a scourge, a bitter slavery, like the brickmaking of Egypt. For as they toiled for the king of the Egyptians, so do we toil for the devil when we are consumed by worldly cares, and we are scourged with far more grievous stripes. We are full of fear, in anxiety, in trembling. But if we will groan and look up to God, He sends not Moses or Aaron, but His own Word, and compunction, to bring us forth from that vain slavery. Do not imagine that freedom comes from the absence of hardship; it comes when the heart cleaves to God and despises all earthly things. For what if you are freed from anxiety, yet remain soft and unmanly, careless in hearing the word? One virtue alone is not sufficient; it requires careful hearing, continual recollection, fortitude, and deliverance from all worldly attachments.
The Lord Jesus, when He touched the body of Peter’s wife’s mother, not only quenched the fever but gave her back perfect health at once. This He does for those who seek Him with faith. Yet do not seek the body’s ease more than the soul’s cure. Sometimes God permits the body to be scourged so that the soul may be healed, as a physician uses external cautery when internal remedies fail. Therefore, while you pray, examine your conscience. Let the sword of the Spirit strip away every sinful habit, every clinging anxiety born of unbelief. Receive the word of compunction; let it bring you out of Egypt. For though you may have heard many times and remained insensible, one true hearing may bear abundant fruit.
The body of Christ has divers gifts, and not all have gifts of healing, but every member may pray and groan for one another. Therefore cast your care upon Him, and give no more room to the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which sting like a harlot’s honey that turns to gall. Seek first the kingdom, and in the very act of seeking, the fever of anxiety begins to cool. If He grants you bodily health, walk henceforth with fear and trembling, lest a worse thing befall. If He delays, endure as one who knows that the present light affliction is working an eternal weight of glory. In all, let your request be not only for the body’s repose, but for the soul’s thorough repentance and the peace that surpasses understanding.