Sickness in those we love cuts near to the bone, and the web of your parents’ afflictions is heavy indeed, a mother with fungal invasion in the very bellows of breath, complicated by the weariness of diabetes, and a father beset on every side, from his eyes to his feet, with swelling, pressure, and pain. It is no small thing to see these twin pillars of your earthly home shaking under such a load. Yet this is precisely the hour when the Lord’s ear is most attentive, for a true prayer from one who is near unto the gates of death is a prevailing prayer. Do not think you must frame a tidy, ordered petition. The prayer that staggers, the prayer that has lost all logical consecutiveness because the supplicant is at his wit’s end, that prayer reels straight to the throne of grace. Your heart’s groaning for them is heard even when your tongue cannot shape the syllables.
Yet remember the conditions of power in prayer, for we would not have your cries fall short. There is a vast difference between a sinner’s first seeking of mercy and a redeemed child’s habitual approach, and you come now not merely begging for pardon but for the healing hand of the covenant-keeping God. The weightiest reason for any action of a loving child is the persuasion that it would please his Father. Search your heart, then, is there any secret sin, any harbored disobedience that might cause the chariot wheels of your prayer to drag? Unanswered prayer is frequently an admonition against an iniquity cherished within, or even great sin mingled with the very prayer itself. Lay bare your soul before the Great Physician. Let your prayer rise not from self-conceit, but in Jacob’s humility, pleading the very arguments God Himself has given you in His Word. You do not go to an unwilling God; you go to plead His own promise, to spread the case before Him and press your suit with all the arguments His Scripture provides.
And what are those arguments? Point to Jesus, the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. There is no other balm in Gilead, no other physician of real value. Calvary is the place not merely for the lancet that cuts open our sin but for the healing balm that restores. When Jesus healed the palsied man, forgiveness and healing flowed in one stream. The Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings, and His pardoning word is often the very beginning of health’s return. Pray, then, not merely for the fungal scourge to abate or the blood to calm its rebellious tide, but first and foremost that the Lord would manifest His forgiving, gracious presence in that sickroom, for His healing power is conspicuously present where He is teaching and ruling in the heart. One sacred fountain was opened on Calvary, to wash therein is health for soul and body in God’s good time and way.
Do not be disheartened if the answer does not come in the precise form you envision. Jacob’s prayer was answered, but not as he anticipated; he thought to appease Esau with a drove of goats and camels, but the Lord wrestled with him by the brook until his self-sufficiency was broken, and then the answer dawned. Your parents may yet know the abiding power of those leaves that keep the soul in perpetual health until the glory-life begins, where the inhabitant shall not say, “I am sick.” The body’s restoration may be gradual; it may wait for the resurrection morning. But the Lord has begun to heal His people, and the healing virtue He infuses will work its cure. Expect Him to be very pitiful. He was not long in answering the prayer of the staggering when once they cried, though they delayed long to pray at all. Cry to Him in the daytime, and in the night season let the groans ascend, mighty prayer will yet prevail if it has but time.
In the meanwhile, do not pull away from Him with Peter’s cry of “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,” as if the sense of your unworthiness should drive a wedge between you and the only Helper. That prayer, though humble, must be turned inside out by faith. A braver, tenderer petition is, “Lord, I am indeed a sinful man; therefore come nearer to me still, for I need Thee more.” Bring your parents in the arms of intercession and lay them before Jesus, hoping and expecting both his forgiving smile and his healing touch. The Lord put forth His hand to receive such a prayer as a dove returning to the ark. Wait upon Him with that blessed in-waiting of faith, and may the healing influences drop upon your household thick as autumn leaves, till health blooms again, and the gloomy night is changed to morning.
