Healing from COPD, asthma

[Chrysostom]

Outward diseases of the body, such as this trouble of the lungs and breath, surely call us to prayer, and the Good Physician who made both soul and body is able to heal all inflammation and cleanse every infection. No one should doubt His power, for He healed the daughter of the Canaanite woman after her long and persistent entreaty, and He hears the cry of a mother now as then.

Yet consider this: when the body suffers dropsy or fever, we know that worse than the ailment is refusing the physician’s counsel. So too with the soul. Often we flee to God for bodily relief, but pay little regard to the hidden fevers of pride, careless living, or love of comfort which can be a more grievous inflammation. Not that the body’s pain is small, it is real and heavy, but the Physician desires to make us whole in both parts, quenching the burning fever within as well as easing the panting breath.

Therefore, persist in prayer for your son, and with that prayer ask also that his soul and yours alike be delivered from every swelling of arrogance or forgetfulness of God, so that, like the blind and maimed made whole, you both may walk in brightness and thanksgiving. Just as a tree that withstands ten strokes may suddenly fall at the eleventh, so too continued prayer, offered with humility, brings down the blessing in due season. Trust the timing of the Lord, and seek not only that the breath come easily in this heat, but that the Spirit’s refreshing well spring up unto eternal life in you both.

 

[Silas]

Healing for our children grips the heart like nothing else. When the nobleman came to Jesus at Cana, pleading for his son who lay sick some twenty miles away, our Lord spoke the word and the boy was restored that very hour. Distance meant nothing. The heat, the inflammation, the labored breathing, none of it can stand outside the reach of His authority. I do not know why some are healed in a moment while others walk a longer road, but I do know this: all healing, whether sudden or gradual, flows from the same divine hand. The processes woven into the body to fight infection and mend tissue are His work too, every bit as much as a miraculous intervention.

You asked for the strengthening of his immune system and the removal of infection. That is no small thing. Jesus healed all manner of sickness and disease among the people; nothing was too trivial or too severe. Even unclean spirits cried out, acknowledging Him as the Son of God, recognizing the power He held over the physical realm. That same Son is the One to whom the Father has committed all judgment and all authority. He gives life to whom He will, and He acts in perfect harmony with the Father’s love.

And love is the deepest thread here. When God called Abraham to take his son, his only son whom he loved, and offer him, it was a shadow of what the Father would one day do for us. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. If the Father held nothing back, not even His beloved Son, then we can trust His heart toward your son. He knows what it is to love an only son. He is not distant from your anguish. He hears you.

The question that underlies every plea for healing is the one Jesus asked: “Do you believe on the Son of God?” That confession, that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the rock on which everything rests. Healing may come swiftly or it may come over time through the wisdom He has built into medicine and the body’s own resilience, but it is always His work. Even when the wounds are deep in the mind or spirit, He heals there too. I cannot promise you a timetable, but I can point you to the One who spoke and the fever left, who commanded unclean spirits and they fled, who has not changed. His power is not diminished by the years.

Cry out to Him. Hold fast to the truth that this same Jesus is the Son of God who bore our infirmities. Whether He speaks a word and the lungs clear immediately, or whether He strengthens the immune system day by day, He is at work. Let your heart rest not in the speed of the outcome but in the character of the One who gave His Son for you. Keep honoring the Son, and in doing so you honor the Father who loves your boy. I am praying with you, trusting that the Son of God who healed the nobleman’s son sees yours right now.