Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your prayer has been heard and thank you for sharing so openly the burdens you carry in your body, your daily comfort, your finances and your home, and your love for your cats and your hope for a puppy.
I want to speak to you gently and truthfully about how God heals and provides, so that your faith may rest on Christ himself and not on a formula of words. To speak a thing into existence or to repeat the blood of Jesus as if it were an incantation is not how Scripture teaches us to pray. One of the homilies warns that when people use amulets or special phrases to try to force a result, even while saying they call upon God, they are turning to a kind of magic rather than to trust. Our help is not in the power of our words but in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ alone, who is our only Savior and physician of soul and body.
Scripture also shows that God does not always remove every infirmity at once, even from those he loves dearly. Paul, whose clothing God used to raise the dead, left his faithful companion Timothy with frequent infirmities of the stomach and told him to use the simple medical help available, a little wine for his stomachs sake. He did this not because he could not heal him, but to teach us that great and virtuous people remain fully human, that we should not be offended when healing comes slowly, and that God in his wisdom can use even ongoing weakness to keep us humble and to draw us closer to him. In the same way, the Lord who sat at table with sinners acts as a physician who stays near the sick to bring true healing in his time and in his way. This means it is right and good for you to pray for relief from pain in your back and from nausea and burning in your stomach, and it is also right to seek the help of doctors and to follow their careful guidance while you pray.
Your desire for financial stability, for a home you can keep, and to care well for your animals comes from a good place. God is our provider and he cares about our daily needs. Yet the Scriptures do not teach us to demand a windfall or to claim a miracle on our terms. Instead we are taught to ask our Father for daily bread, to work faithfully with what he has placed in our hands, to be good stewards of what he gives, and to trust his wisdom when his answer is provision, or patience, or a different path than we expected. To want to keep your cats and to desire a gentle dog to walk and to care for can be a lovely thing, but that desire is best brought to God as a request submitted to his will, not as a demand he must fulfill in a particular way.
So let us pray together in the way Christ taught us, with humility and trust.
Father in heaven, we thank you for your love shown in Jesus Christ, through whom alone we have forgiveness and life. Have mercy on this dear one who suffers in body. Ease the pain and nausea, bring healing to the stomach and strength to the body according to your good will, and give wisdom to doctors and all who give care. Grant peace in place of anxiety, and teach a deeper trust in your goodness whether healing comes quickly or through a longer path. Provide for daily needs, grant wisdom in finances, open the right door for housing, and help to steward all you provide with gratitude and generosity. Above all, draw this heart ever closer to Jesus, that whatever the circumstance, there may be confidence in your love and hope in eternal life with you. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Continue to bring your needs to God in simple, trusting prayer, to listen to his Word, and to walk with his people. Even when fruit seems slow to appear, the Lord is at work. As a tree may receive many strokes before it bears fruit, or a physician may apply many remedies before health returns, so God often works through persistence, through his Word heard again and again, and through ordinary means to bring healing to body and soul. Keep seeking him, keep trusting Christ, and keep using the wise helps he provides.
I want to speak to you gently and truthfully about how God heals and provides, so that your faith may rest on Christ himself and not on a formula of words. To speak a thing into existence or to repeat the blood of Jesus as if it were an incantation is not how Scripture teaches us to pray. One of the homilies warns that when people use amulets or special phrases to try to force a result, even while saying they call upon God, they are turning to a kind of magic rather than to trust. Our help is not in the power of our words but in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ alone, who is our only Savior and physician of soul and body.
Scripture also shows that God does not always remove every infirmity at once, even from those he loves dearly. Paul, whose clothing God used to raise the dead, left his faithful companion Timothy with frequent infirmities of the stomach and told him to use the simple medical help available, a little wine for his stomachs sake. He did this not because he could not heal him, but to teach us that great and virtuous people remain fully human, that we should not be offended when healing comes slowly, and that God in his wisdom can use even ongoing weakness to keep us humble and to draw us closer to him. In the same way, the Lord who sat at table with sinners acts as a physician who stays near the sick to bring true healing in his time and in his way. This means it is right and good for you to pray for relief from pain in your back and from nausea and burning in your stomach, and it is also right to seek the help of doctors and to follow their careful guidance while you pray.
Your desire for financial stability, for a home you can keep, and to care well for your animals comes from a good place. God is our provider and he cares about our daily needs. Yet the Scriptures do not teach us to demand a windfall or to claim a miracle on our terms. Instead we are taught to ask our Father for daily bread, to work faithfully with what he has placed in our hands, to be good stewards of what he gives, and to trust his wisdom when his answer is provision, or patience, or a different path than we expected. To want to keep your cats and to desire a gentle dog to walk and to care for can be a lovely thing, but that desire is best brought to God as a request submitted to his will, not as a demand he must fulfill in a particular way.
So let us pray together in the way Christ taught us, with humility and trust.
Father in heaven, we thank you for your love shown in Jesus Christ, through whom alone we have forgiveness and life. Have mercy on this dear one who suffers in body. Ease the pain and nausea, bring healing to the stomach and strength to the body according to your good will, and give wisdom to doctors and all who give care. Grant peace in place of anxiety, and teach a deeper trust in your goodness whether healing comes quickly or through a longer path. Provide for daily needs, grant wisdom in finances, open the right door for housing, and help to steward all you provide with gratitude and generosity. Above all, draw this heart ever closer to Jesus, that whatever the circumstance, there may be confidence in your love and hope in eternal life with you. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Continue to bring your needs to God in simple, trusting prayer, to listen to his Word, and to walk with his people. Even when fruit seems slow to appear, the Lord is at work. As a tree may receive many strokes before it bears fruit, or a physician may apply many remedies before health returns, so God often works through persistence, through his Word heard again and again, and through ordinary means to bring healing to body and soul. Keep seeking him, keep trusting Christ, and keep using the wise helps he provides.
