Help them to help us, Lord

[Chrysostom]

You dread missing something important, and this small care has swallowed you whole. But consider: if the devil sees the law of God written in your soul, and your heart a tablet for the Spirit’s writing, he cannot even look upon such calm, but turns his back from afar. Is it so with you now? This anxiety over a piece of mail, a postal carrier’s fault, has it not darkened your mind and driven away that peace? You pray for healing of body and soul, which is right, yet you link that great request to this trifling grievance as if they were one thing. The aches and pains of the body are real, and the mind’s turmoil also, but the remedy is not a speedy Monday delivery. The remedy is to come continually to the house of healing, to hear the laws of the Spirit, and on returning home to write them in your heart. Then even in the midst of displeasing things, you will enjoy a great calm.

You ask the Lord to use you, to have His way, and that is a noble cry. But do not understand this spiritually in one breath, and then carnally in the next. What does it mean for the Holy Spirit to have His way? It does not mean He smooths every minor inconvenience so your mind can rest. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, you cannot trace His path, any more than the wind’s. His work in you is not to make the mail carrier flawless, but to render your soul unstained by such disturbances, bright with grace, so that you give no occasion of stumbling. If your peace depends on a letter arriving, you are not yet salt and light to the watching world; you are darkened by the very thing you should rise above.

Do not neglect your body’s pain or your mind’s weariness, but bring them to the Great Physician with a higher hope. The punishment you shun in small frustrations points to a far greater fear: eternal punishment and the fire that is never quenched. Let that thought startle you into true healing. Would you trade the soul’s calm for a timely envelope? God forbid. All things, whether you eat or drink or fret over lost mail, do all to the glory of God. Seek that first. The Holy Spirit’s use of you begins not with outward tasks done in agitation, but with an inner stillness that proclaims, “I know that my Redeemer lives” more loudly than any words. Then even the careless carrier becomes a foundation for grace, if you meet the small trial without stumbling.

 

[Silas]

When you ask the Lord to heal every ache and use you more, you are already on the right path. That desire did not come from your flesh; it came from the Holy Spirit stirring within you. The scriptures remind us that no one can truly call Jesus “Lord” except by the Spirit. So just the fact that you are crying out to be used is evidence that He is at work in you.

That moment with the postal carrier and the missed mailbox can seem small, but it becomes a real test. The flesh wants to vent frustration, to rehearse the carelessness and fixate on what might be lost. But the mind set on the Spirit chooses a different response. The mind of the flesh is death… it breeds anxiety and irritation. The mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Right there, standing by the mailbox, you were offered a choice: yield to the flesh’s reaction, or yield that moment to God and trust Him with your mail, no matter how important it seems. That is exactly what it looks like to be led by the Spirit in ordinary Monday mornings.

You also mentioned aches and pains, mind issues, and a longing for wholeness in spirit and body. God created you as a unity: spirit, mind, and body. His original design was for the spirit, joined to His Spirit, to lead the mind, and the body to follow in its proper place. Sin reversed that order, so often our bodies and their needs cry out the loudest. But through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside you. Your body is no longer just your own; it has become a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to you. You were bought with a precious price, so now you get to glorify God in your body and in your spirit.

That doesn’t mean your aches don’t matter. It means you can present those very aches, that physical weariness, those scattered thoughts, to God as an offering. Tell Him, “Lord, I give You this body with all its pains; I give You this mind with all its struggles. I present them to You as instruments of righteousness, not as servants to worry or complaint.” As you do that repeatedly, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead begins to impart life even where death has been at work. The mind of the flesh drains life; the mind ruled by the Spirit is life and peace. He bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God, and if a child, then an heir. That assurance reaches deeper than any temporary relief from pain can.

You ended simply: “use me more, Holy Spirit, have Your way.” That prayer does not bounce off the ceiling. The Spirit divides gifts and places each member in the body exactly as He wills. When you present yourself, asking not to be spastic or self-directed but fully coordinated with what He is doing, He will open doors for you to function in ways that build up others and bring glory to God. You don’t need to know how; you just need to wait for His mind in each situation, refusing to act impulsively out of your flesh. As you keep yielding, He will fill you afresh, and the fruit of the Spirit will begin to show up more in your responses: love, joy, peace, patience right there when the mail goes missing.

So let the missing mail become a quiet altar where you offer your body anew to God. He cares about your needs, but more than that, He is conforming you to the image of Jesus Christ. Even as your outer tent wears down through age or illness, the Spirit is preserving your whole being, spirit, soul, and body, blameless for the coming of our Lord. Walk in the Spirit today. Yield to Him in the mundane. And trust that as you do, He is moving you into harmony with His plans, using you far more than you can see.