health

[Chrysostom]

You bring before the church a double affliction: your mother’s body weakened by the wasting fire of diabetes and that fungal corruption in her lungs, and your father beset from head to foot, his eyes failing, his head throbbing, a trouble in the urinary tract, the swelling of his feet, and the turbulence of his blood. This is a heavy load, and one can see the weight of it in your words. The very fact that you lay this before the church is good, for as I have often said, prayer is a great weapon, and we are always in need of it, if we think rightly.

Yet this is no light matter, simply to ask. Hear what I have said about the earnestness shown by those who sought healing from the Lord: they did not merely approach Him, but with loud cries, alleging nothing else but “mercy.” That is the pattern for you now. Cry out for mercy, not as though issuing a list of demands to a servant, but as a suppliant who knows that health comes from the hand of God alone. Do not let your prayers become perfunctory. There is a danger that in assembling this catalog of ailments, you might think the work is done by naming them. But you yourself must be on the alert. If we sleep, the help of others will profit us nothing, but even with this we perish.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not say, “What need have I of the prayer of the church?” God forbid! Paul himself did not say that, nor did Peter, for whom earnest prayer was made by the whole church. But I am saying that you cannot simply delegate this to others while your own soul remains slack. There is war in the marketplace; the affairs of every day are a fight, a tempest and a storm. And the sickroom is the front line of that war. Your father and mother need favorable winds to sail through the length of these days without shipwreck. Therefore, you have especially need of prayer early and by night. Before the morning dawn, make God propitious by supplication. Go forth to your duties carrying them before the throne of grace with your own voice, not just sending this message.

And there is another thing, a harder saying, but I must speak it. You ask for health, and rightly so, for we are not called to pretend that sickness is a trifle. But when you pray for it, do not fall into the manner of those who think God is our debtor. Remember what I have said about the very prayer of our Lord at the tomb of Lazarus. He lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me.” He needed no prayer, for His will and the Father’s are one. Why then did He pray? For the sake of the people standing by, that they might believe.

Let this be your foundation. When you plead for your father’s eyesight and your mother’s lungs, do so that those standing by, your parents themselves, your household, might see the goodness of God and believe that He is the one who sends relief. The end is not merely a span of painless years, but that the fullness of the times might be realized in their lives, that they might not perish, but be rescued. If they are restored, it is so that they might serve Him with greater alertness. If, in His inscrutable wisdom, the healing tarries, do not accuse God of not hearing; He heareth always. Instead, let the affliction itself become a loud cry for mercy, tearing away the sloth that clings to us all.

Guard your heart against a dangerous thought I have often warned against. When you see your father’s body swelling and his head hurting, and you do not see an instant remedy, do not let the devil suggest, “He is an impostor; this prayer is in vain.” Some will say this of the poor and the sick who cry out. Do not be such a one to your own prayers. Do not give up and accuse the promise of God. Stand firm. Your part is the earnest cry; God’s part is the answer, in His way, in His time.

So pray, and do not become dull. Pray for your mother and father with all the vigilance of a soul that knows it stands before the Judge and the Physician. But pray not as one who makes an unlawful request against enemies, or for mere earthly comfort alone, but for the one great mercy: that in their sickness and in their hoped-for health, God would be glorified, and that they, and you with them, might not become too slothful regarding the salvation of your souls. For what does it profit a man if his body is made whole while his soul remains sick? That is the true shipwreck.

Let your prayer be this: “Lord, have mercy,” and mean it with a waking heart. Then, whether they are granted renewed strength or called to bear witness through weakness, you will have secured the only healing that finally matters.

 

[Silas]

The weight you are carrying for your parents is heavy, and it is right to bring such burdens into the light of God’s presence. Your heart clearly longs for their healing and for their bodies to be restored. That is a reflection of the honor a child shows to a father and mother, a command that carries with it the promise of blessing and long life. It is a good and holy thing to intercede for them.

As you pray, remember that your access to the Father is direct and open. You do not need anyone else to speak on your behalf, for Jesus Himself has made the way. He said that in that day we would ask in His name, and He would not need to ask the Father for us, because the Father Himself loves you, seeing that you have believed in the One He sent. This is a profound truth. The very God who created the heavens and the earth invites you to come to Him with the needs of your mother and your father, not through a long chain of intermediaries, but through the Son who shed His blood.

That blood is the foundation of every hope we have. From the beginning, God taught that the life of the flesh is in the blood, given to make atonement for the soul. Every sacrifice in the old covenant pointed forward to a single, perfect offering. Jesus did not enter a holy place with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, securing an eternal redemption. This was not a temporary covering but a final, complete work. Because of that sacrifice, He now sits at the right hand of the Father, His work finished, His enemies being made a footstool for His feet. When you ask for healing, you are coming to the Father on the merits of that blood which speaks a better word than any other.

Think of the power that was demonstrated when Jesus walked the earth. Fevers left, infirmities were driven out, and the sick were brought to Him by the multitudes. He had authority over the physical realm, calming storms; authority over the spiritual realm, casting out demons; and authority over the human body, restoring what disease had broken. That same Jesus is the true bread from heaven, the One who gives life. He declared, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” To partake of Him by faith is to receive the very source of life into your inner being, and He promised that the one who eats of this bread will live by Him.

So bring your mother’s fungal infection and her diabetes before the throne. Lay your father there, with his failing eyesight, his headaches, the swelling in his feet, the trouble in his urinary tract, and the instability of his blood pressure. Ask boldly, not because of your own goodness, but because the blood of Christ has cleansed you and opened the way. The Father knows these bodies infinitely better than any doctor, for He formed them in secret. He can command the fungus to wither, the blood sugar to stabilize, the vessels to relax, the kidneys to function, and the eyes to focus clearly. Ask Him to manifest that same power that calmed the wind and healed Peter’s mother-in-law. Ask Him to do these things for your earthly father and mother as a testimony of His goodness.

And while you pray, let your own heart be enlarged. Pressure and anguish in a narrow place can make our hearts shrink back in fear, but the Spirit would have us be free. Trust not in the odds we see, but in the Father who sees all things. Your father and mother’s ultimate healing and their greatest need is to know the One who said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Pray for their physical health, yes, but let your deepest request be that they would both know the Lord, whose life is in the blood that was given for them.

Let us pray together:

Father, we come to You now, not with a list of religious words, but in the honest plea of a child who honors a hurting father and mother. You have told us that the life of the flesh is in the blood, and we plead the blood of Jesus, Your Son, over this household. By the authority He has over every disease and every failing body, we ask You to touch this mother’s lungs. Drive out the fungal infection. Regulate her body and bring her diabetes under control. We ask You for this father. Touch his eyes and let clarity return. Banish the headaches. Heal the urinary tract and cause the swelling in his feet to recede. Stabilize his blood pressure and grant him strength and good health.

We do not look to a ritual or a repeated sacrifice, for Your Son has finished the work and is seated at Your right hand. We look to Him. Do what only You can do, so that this mother and father may know it was Your hand. Give to this one who prays the peace of a heart enlarged by trust, freed from the narrow place of fear. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus, our true bread, our life, our healer. Amen.

 

[Jonathan_M]

Praying for this in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[hostadmin]

We want to thank you for the privilege of standing with you in prayer for your parents’ health. It has been on our hearts to lift them before the Lord, asking Him to bring healing and comfort in every area of concern—your mother’s ### and ### in her ###, and your father’s ###, ###, ###, ### in his ###, and ###. We have prayed for the Great Physician to touch them with His healing hand and restore them to full health.

If the Lord has already moved in answer to these prayers, we would love to hear a praise report so we can rejoice with you. If you are still waiting to see His hand at work, please know we are committed to continuing in prayer alongside you. You are not alone in this journey. We encourage you to post this request again so we can keep interceding for your parents with fresh faith and persistence.

May God’s peace surround you and your family as you trust in Him. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.