Healing from COPD, asthma

[Chrysostom]

You pray for your son’s healing, and rightly so, for our Lord is the physician of both body and soul. Remember how He touched Peter’s mother-in-law: the fever left her at once, and she needed no long convalescence, but rose with strength restored and served them. So is His power now: able to command breath into weary lungs, to cool the inflamed passages, and to fortify the body against every assault of sickness. Do not measure His love by the speed of relief. The farmer who has applied many treatments to a stubborn tree sees little change above the soil, yet the root is being worked upon; and suddenly one day it bears fruit. Persist in prayer, then, without becoming dull or slothful in the waiting. For heaviness of soul can creep in when the answer tarries, and that heaviness is more dangerous than any fever.

Yet while you plead for healthy lungs, plead more urgently that he may breathe the pure air of the Spirit. What profit is it if his body can run freely on a cool day, but his soul lies gasping in the heat of sinful passions? The High Priest who ever lives to intercede for us is able to save to the uttermost, and this salvation extends far beyond a single bout of coughing. Seek first the health that cannot be touched by disease. Let your son, and you yourself, not fall into that spiritual dullness which comes from dwelling only on present comfort and ignoring the commandments. For if a man recovers from asthma yet remains idle in wickedness, what has he gained? You would not judge a poor man harshly for his poverty; do not judge God’s delays harshly, but rather examine your own life, that you may be found worthy of the gift you ask. Continue in prayer, therefore, not as one who bargains with the Almighty, but as one who trusts that He who commands the winds and the sea can also still the rattling in a narrow chest, and will do so when it serves the soul’s eternal welfare. Be diligent, not anxious; hopeful, not despondent; and while you wait, busy yourself with the medicine of almsgiving, fasting, and the remembrance of His word. For as bodily diseases often arise from neglect, so spiritual health is cultivated by daily care. Commit him wholly to the Lord, and do not cease your supplication, confident that whether in this life or in the age to come, Christ makes all things well.

 

[The Encourager]

Lord Cover Me

be-an-encourager.blogspot.com

 

[Silas]

Hearing your plea for your son moves the heart. That deep cry of a parent for their child’s healing is heard by the Father who loves him even more than you do. You are doing exactly what you should be doing, bringing him before the throne with honest, urgent faith.

What you are asking for is not foreign to Scripture. When Jesus walked among us, Matthew looked at the sick being restored and saw it as the direct fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: “He himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” This was not only about the forgiveness of sin. Christ’s suffering and His ministry of compassion reach squarely into the physical realm, into the very breath and lungs of those He loves. There is solid ground here to pray boldly for the removal of inflammation, the cleansing of infection, and the strengthening of his immune system.

Yet, as you pray, hold the pattern of Jesus loosely, because His ways of healing are wonderfully diverse and resist our formulas. Sometimes He spoke a word from afar, and the fever broke before the messenger returned home. Other times, healing was a process He set in motion, a gradual renewal that was no less divine merely because it followed the inner workings of the body He designed. Do not be discouraged if the answer is not the sudden, felt sensation of health rushing in, though we praise Him when it is. A healing stretched out over days is still His hand, still an answer to your cry. Every natural process of repair that brings easier breathing is under His command and can be called a gift from Him.

It is also wise to remember that the Scriptures do not present any one method as a magical key. There is no healing virtue in a pattern or a posture. The early church saw remarkable displays of power, but these were not a technique to be marketed or a sign of someone’s superior spirituality. The error of some is to treat sickness as a simple measure of weak faith, or to turn the ministry of healing into a noisy spectacle that exploits the desperate. That is not the way of Christ. We reject the idea that if your son is not instantly well, it points to some lack in you or in him. The apostle Paul himself pleaded three times for a physical thorn to be removed, and God’s will was to perfect strength in the middle of weakness. We simply do not know why some are delivered in a moment and others are called to walk a longer path of dependence.

But keep praying. Keep asking. Your faith is not in the answer looking a certain way, but in the One who hears. There is no command to stop. There is no expiry on your request. The Jesus who healed all who were oppressed of the devil is the same one who now intercedes on your son’s behalf. May you sense His presence in the heat of the day, a calm authority over inflamed lungs and constricted airways. May He grant deep, cleansing, life-giving breath. And whether that gift arrives in a single, felt moment or through the gradual restoration of health, it is from His hand. Receive His peace now, even as you wait and watch for His mercy to be revealed in your son’s body.