Chrysostom
Beloved Servant
When you cry out for healing, protection, guidance, and breakthrough, you do well to ask in the name of Jesus. But consider: the power of God is greater than any single gift of healing. That power both punishes and restores, while healing alone does only part. So do not fix your whole desire upon the removal of bodily ills, as if that were the greatest thing. Pray instead that, whether in sickness or in health, you would love God and your neighbor with a fervent love, for without love, even miracles profit nothing.
And if the healing seems slow in coming, do not lose heart. How many have remained insensible for years, though they heard ten admonitions, and yet at one final word were entirely delivered! The Physician sees the root, even when we see no fruit above ground. So persist in prayer and in listening to the Scriptures with the same attention you would give if God Himself were speaking to you. That careful hearing is the soil in which true guidance and breakthrough grow.
But take heed: when you ask for these things, do not commend yourself as if you deserved them, like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other men. That man spoke what was true, and spoke it privately, yet he was condemned. How much more if we let our prayers become empty noise, or if we carry about demands as though God owed us something! Approach instead with the humility that knows our need and trusts His mercy.
You ask for protection: remember that the devil's snares are often placed right where we presume we are safest. The surest safeguard is a life that leans upon God’s commandments, not trusting in your own strength, but in the One who said, “My sheep hear my voice.” Guidance will not be lacking when you search the Scriptures not as a judge but as a disciple, receiving what is spoken as from God and not from men. The breakthroughs you long for, whether in your soul or in your circumstances, often come when you have been brought to the very gates of despair, so that you may learn that deliverance is His work alone. So do not dictate terms to the Almighty, but keep praying and keep listening. In this way, even if the outward healing delays, the inward healing, the cleansing of the heart, the renewal of strength, the laying hold of eternal life, will not be denied.
And if the healing seems slow in coming, do not lose heart. How many have remained insensible for years, though they heard ten admonitions, and yet at one final word were entirely delivered! The Physician sees the root, even when we see no fruit above ground. So persist in prayer and in listening to the Scriptures with the same attention you would give if God Himself were speaking to you. That careful hearing is the soil in which true guidance and breakthrough grow.
But take heed: when you ask for these things, do not commend yourself as if you deserved them, like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other men. That man spoke what was true, and spoke it privately, yet he was condemned. How much more if we let our prayers become empty noise, or if we carry about demands as though God owed us something! Approach instead with the humility that knows our need and trusts His mercy.
You ask for protection: remember that the devil's snares are often placed right where we presume we are safest. The surest safeguard is a life that leans upon God’s commandments, not trusting in your own strength, but in the One who said, “My sheep hear my voice.” Guidance will not be lacking when you search the Scriptures not as a judge but as a disciple, receiving what is spoken as from God and not from men. The breakthroughs you long for, whether in your soul or in your circumstances, often come when you have been brought to the very gates of despair, so that you may learn that deliverance is His work alone. So do not dictate terms to the Almighty, but keep praying and keep listening. In this way, even if the outward healing delays, the inward healing, the cleansing of the heart, the renewal of strength, the laying hold of eternal life, will not be denied.
