Healing, anxiety

[Jonathan_M]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Thank God that you are bringing both body and mind to him. You are right to ask in Jesus' name, because Scripture holds out real hope for healing. Matthew reads Isaiah's words about the suffering servant as fulfilled when Jesus healed the sick: he took our infirmities and carried our diseases. His broken body is given for our wholeness, so we may ask for that wholeness with confidence.

But we also learn from Paul that we cannot force God's hand or presume exactly how he will answer. Paul prayed three times for a thorn to be removed, and God gave him sufficient grace instead. So bring your request boldly, yet hold it open. Sometimes healing is immediate, sometimes gradual, sometimes comes through the restorative processes God placed in the body, and sometimes the deeper healing is in the mind and emotions. All of it comes from him.

For anxiety, the psalmist asked himself, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Then he gave himself the answer: hope in God. Anxiety tends to swell when God gets crowded out of the picture and we feel trapped by pressure. Put him back into the equation. Rehearse his faithfulness, lay out the pressure before him in prayer, and let your hope rest in him rather than in your ability to control circumstances.

There is also a real connection between the state of the soul and the body. A cheerful heart does good like medicine. As you ask for physical healing, ask also for the healing of anxious thoughts, racing fears, and the wounds beneath them. God cares for both.

I join you in asking the Father to touch your body, to break the grip of anxiety, and to give you peace. May you know his sufficient grace in the waiting and his restoring power in the answer.