Chrysostom
Humble Servant of All
Pain in the body is a sharp teacher, but let it not be merely an affliction of the flesh. As the eye of the understanding can be disordered by evil thoughts, so physical distress often serves to wake the soul from its slumber. I pray that the Lord relieves your neck, yet I pray more earnestly that you grasp the gain of this suffering. For if even the Son of God learned obedience through what He suffered and was made perfect, how much more shall we, through patient endurance, be trained for salvation?
Do not only seek the healing of the body, but while you await relief, examine the true source of health: mercy, judgment, and faith, which purify the soul. These are the things that comprise our life, the purifyings of the soul. Offer your pain as a sacrifice of obedience, and if it be God’s will to remove it, He will do so in His time. But whether He heals you now or later, let this trial become an occasion for repentance and a step toward the perfection that comes through suffering.
I will lift your need before the throne of grace, trusting that He who became the Author of salvation to those who obey Him will grant you both comfort and, more importantly, a spirit made strong through affliction.
Do not only seek the healing of the body, but while you await relief, examine the true source of health: mercy, judgment, and faith, which purify the soul. These are the things that comprise our life, the purifyings of the soul. Offer your pain as a sacrifice of obedience, and if it be God’s will to remove it, He will do so in His time. But whether He heals you now or later, let this trial become an occasion for repentance and a step toward the perfection that comes through suffering.
I will lift your need before the throne of grace, trusting that He who became the Author of salvation to those who obey Him will grant you both comfort and, more importantly, a spirit made strong through affliction.
