Silas
Beloved of All
Your honest sharing of these heavy burdens is received with care and prayer. God hears when His people call on Him through Jesus Christ, who alone is the way to the Father, and we will continue to bring these matters before Him with you.
We join you in praying for provision for your family members according to their training and qualifications. For the one in the temporary position who has moved to a new hospital, we ask God to grant favor, stability, and fairness, that salaries owed would be paid on time, that the transition from the previous hospital would be completed without hindrance or financial loss, that the amount asked for notice period would be handled justly, and that no obstacle from former supervisors or departments would cause harm. For the other family member seeking a temporary position while waiting for a permanent one, we ask for an open door that is right in God's timing and will. We pray that whatever work God provides would give opportunity to live out faith and to speak of His goodness with integrity.
We also pray regarding marriage. It is good to desire a godly husband who walks in obedience to Scripture, with clean habits and a faithful life, and to want that marriage to be entered in God's order and timing. We ask God to make His will clear concerning the proposal now under consideration, to open the door if it is from Him and to close it if it is not, and to give you peace and wisdom to follow His leading. We pray for your healing after the fall from your two wheeler, that God would restore you fully over the coming weeks, ease pain, and enable you to return to daily duties at home.
We bring before the Lord your desire for a house of your own, for wisdom in stewardship so that earnings are not wasted on unnecessary or forced expenses, for guidance about clinics according to medical qualifications, and for the desire to use any increase to help poor and needy people find work and improve their lives. We ask God to grant wisdom, discipline, and contentment in all financial decisions.
Concerning the house lease and the large amount still owed after more than eighteen months, we understand the strain this has placed on you, with bank interest increasing and sleep and peace within the family disturbed. It is right to ask God for justice and for the return of what is owed, and we will pray that the person would repay what is due, whether that is rent for the months promised or the interest burden you have carried, and that the matter would be settled quickly and honestly without further loss.
At the same time we must speak gently about the way justice is sought. Asking God to cut off hands and tongues, to destroy a house, to take away jobs forever, to ruin children's education, or to bring lifelong suffering upon a man and his wife and family is not a prayer God calls His people to pray. Scripture teaches us to leave vengeance in God's hands and not to take it into our own hearts. It says vengeance belongs to the Lord and He will repay, and Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and to pray for those who mistreat us, desiring their repentance and salvation. We can pray for God to act justly, to convict, to bring repentance, and to make wrongs right, while also praying that the persons involved would turn to God and be changed. To desire their destruction or the suffering of their children goes beyond what Christ models for us, and it will only deepen bitterness in your own heart.
Your questions about why the honest suffer while the wicked seem to prosper, and why God seems silent, are very old and very human questions. The story of Job helps us here. Behind what Job and his friends could see, there was a controversy in heaven where Satan, who is called the accuser of the brethren and who accuses day and night, challenged the faithfulness of a man whom God Himself called upright and one who hated evil. Job lost everything, his body was afflicted, and his friends came and sat with him in silence for seven days because his grief was so great. When Job finally spoke he cursed the day of his birth, but he did not curse God. His friends tried to explain his suffering from a purely human viewpoint, insisting he must have done wrong to deserve it, and their words became rebuke rather than comfort. They were miserable comforters because they claimed to know what only God knows.
What that story confirms is what God said through Isaiah, that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts, and they are beyond our finding out. Suffering in this world is not always a direct punishment for personal sin. Job was not suffering because he was wicked. He was suffering within a larger purpose he could not see. Even so, the trial felt endless to him, as trials often feel endless to us. If we did not have foundational truths to hold us, we would fall. One of those truths is that God has not forsaken His people. He understands what we go through. Another is that there is one who stands between God and man. Job cried out for a mediator who could lay a hand on both God and man. That mediator has come in Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father and who has become one with us, so that through Him we are brought into touch with God. Through Him every deep cry of the heart finds an answer.
It is also important not to build doctrine on words spoken out of grief. Much of what Job said about life and death in his anguish was the voice of sorrow, not the settled teaching of the Holy Spirit. And God's patience, which can feel like slowness to us, is not powerlessness or indifference. The Scripture that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years does not mean God will never act until after we die. It means His timing is not ours, and His patience is for repentance, because He does not desire that any should perish. He watches over those who love Him and He will deal with wickedness in perfect justice, whether in this life or in the final judgment. The fact that we do not see immediate punishment does not mean God approves of cheating and lying, nor does it mean Satan is more powerful. God is able to do miracles, and He is faithful, gracious, and merciful, even when His answers do not come when or how we expect.
We hear how your faith is being tested and how voices around you are saying God is nowhere and that trusting Him only brings punishment. That is exactly the accusation Satan made against Job, that Job only loved God because he was blessed, and that without blessing he would turn away. Do not let that lie take root. God is not punishing you because you pray. He allows testing, but He also sustains. The last chapter of Job reminds us that God did not leave Job in his suffering forever. There was a final outcome, and God restored and revealed His purposes. In the same way, we can trust that God is working even when we cannot trace His hand.
So we will pray that God would strengthen your faith day by day, guard your mind from despair, bring healing to your body, provide for your family's work needs according to His wisdom, guide the marriage decision, grant wisdom for finances and for the house, and move on the heart of the one who owes you to repay what is just. We will pray that you would be able to forgive as Christ forgave, to release bitterness, and to leave judgment to God while seeking what is right through lawful and peaceable means. And we will pray that your household would know the peace that comes through Jesus, who is our mediator and our hope, that you would experience His nearness now, not only after death, and that your trust would be renewed as you walk with Him.
May the Lord keep you, strengthen you, and guide you in His love, and may His Spirit work in and through your life to accomplish His good purposes.
We join you in praying for provision for your family members according to their training and qualifications. For the one in the temporary position who has moved to a new hospital, we ask God to grant favor, stability, and fairness, that salaries owed would be paid on time, that the transition from the previous hospital would be completed without hindrance or financial loss, that the amount asked for notice period would be handled justly, and that no obstacle from former supervisors or departments would cause harm. For the other family member seeking a temporary position while waiting for a permanent one, we ask for an open door that is right in God's timing and will. We pray that whatever work God provides would give opportunity to live out faith and to speak of His goodness with integrity.
We also pray regarding marriage. It is good to desire a godly husband who walks in obedience to Scripture, with clean habits and a faithful life, and to want that marriage to be entered in God's order and timing. We ask God to make His will clear concerning the proposal now under consideration, to open the door if it is from Him and to close it if it is not, and to give you peace and wisdom to follow His leading. We pray for your healing after the fall from your two wheeler, that God would restore you fully over the coming weeks, ease pain, and enable you to return to daily duties at home.
We bring before the Lord your desire for a house of your own, for wisdom in stewardship so that earnings are not wasted on unnecessary or forced expenses, for guidance about clinics according to medical qualifications, and for the desire to use any increase to help poor and needy people find work and improve their lives. We ask God to grant wisdom, discipline, and contentment in all financial decisions.
Concerning the house lease and the large amount still owed after more than eighteen months, we understand the strain this has placed on you, with bank interest increasing and sleep and peace within the family disturbed. It is right to ask God for justice and for the return of what is owed, and we will pray that the person would repay what is due, whether that is rent for the months promised or the interest burden you have carried, and that the matter would be settled quickly and honestly without further loss.
At the same time we must speak gently about the way justice is sought. Asking God to cut off hands and tongues, to destroy a house, to take away jobs forever, to ruin children's education, or to bring lifelong suffering upon a man and his wife and family is not a prayer God calls His people to pray. Scripture teaches us to leave vengeance in God's hands and not to take it into our own hearts. It says vengeance belongs to the Lord and He will repay, and Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and to pray for those who mistreat us, desiring their repentance and salvation. We can pray for God to act justly, to convict, to bring repentance, and to make wrongs right, while also praying that the persons involved would turn to God and be changed. To desire their destruction or the suffering of their children goes beyond what Christ models for us, and it will only deepen bitterness in your own heart.
Your questions about why the honest suffer while the wicked seem to prosper, and why God seems silent, are very old and very human questions. The story of Job helps us here. Behind what Job and his friends could see, there was a controversy in heaven where Satan, who is called the accuser of the brethren and who accuses day and night, challenged the faithfulness of a man whom God Himself called upright and one who hated evil. Job lost everything, his body was afflicted, and his friends came and sat with him in silence for seven days because his grief was so great. When Job finally spoke he cursed the day of his birth, but he did not curse God. His friends tried to explain his suffering from a purely human viewpoint, insisting he must have done wrong to deserve it, and their words became rebuke rather than comfort. They were miserable comforters because they claimed to know what only God knows.
What that story confirms is what God said through Isaiah, that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts, and they are beyond our finding out. Suffering in this world is not always a direct punishment for personal sin. Job was not suffering because he was wicked. He was suffering within a larger purpose he could not see. Even so, the trial felt endless to him, as trials often feel endless to us. If we did not have foundational truths to hold us, we would fall. One of those truths is that God has not forsaken His people. He understands what we go through. Another is that there is one who stands between God and man. Job cried out for a mediator who could lay a hand on both God and man. That mediator has come in Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father and who has become one with us, so that through Him we are brought into touch with God. Through Him every deep cry of the heart finds an answer.
It is also important not to build doctrine on words spoken out of grief. Much of what Job said about life and death in his anguish was the voice of sorrow, not the settled teaching of the Holy Spirit. And God's patience, which can feel like slowness to us, is not powerlessness or indifference. The Scripture that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years does not mean God will never act until after we die. It means His timing is not ours, and His patience is for repentance, because He does not desire that any should perish. He watches over those who love Him and He will deal with wickedness in perfect justice, whether in this life or in the final judgment. The fact that we do not see immediate punishment does not mean God approves of cheating and lying, nor does it mean Satan is more powerful. God is able to do miracles, and He is faithful, gracious, and merciful, even when His answers do not come when or how we expect.
We hear how your faith is being tested and how voices around you are saying God is nowhere and that trusting Him only brings punishment. That is exactly the accusation Satan made against Job, that Job only loved God because he was blessed, and that without blessing he would turn away. Do not let that lie take root. God is not punishing you because you pray. He allows testing, but He also sustains. The last chapter of Job reminds us that God did not leave Job in his suffering forever. There was a final outcome, and God restored and revealed His purposes. In the same way, we can trust that God is working even when we cannot trace His hand.
So we will pray that God would strengthen your faith day by day, guard your mind from despair, bring healing to your body, provide for your family's work needs according to His wisdom, guide the marriage decision, grant wisdom for finances and for the house, and move on the heart of the one who owes you to repay what is just. We will pray that you would be able to forgive as Christ forgave, to release bitterness, and to leave judgment to God while seeking what is right through lawful and peaceable means. And we will pray that your household would know the peace that comes through Jesus, who is our mediator and our hope, that you would experience His nearness now, not only after death, and that your trust would be renewed as you walk with Him.
May the Lord keep you, strengthen you, and guide you in His love, and may His Spirit work in and through your life to accomplish His good purposes.
