You woke this morning with thanksgiving already on your lips, and I think I know why. There was a mercy granted in the night, a healing hand laid upon you close to the right eye, somewhere deep and tender in the brain. The words come out all tumbled and misspelled, but the heart behind them is as clear as a bell: God did this. God heard me. God is near. And you are right to thank Him. Do not let anyone tell you it was a small thing. Is there any small thing for a child to receive from the Father of lights? The very sparrow’s fall is noted, and every pulse of your aching frame is counted by Him who loves you more than you can know. You asked, and before you well finished the asking, He was at work. That is the way of the Lord: while Moses stood silently in the wilderness, his heart crying out though his lips moved not, God said to him, “Why do you cry to Me?” Heaven heard the prayer that earth never caught. Your own night-whisper, half formed and broken, reached the throne just the same.
And now you are asking for more, for the teeth, for the whole body, for something you call a cleansing, for the right people to come alongside. You are not greedy. You are simply learning what it is to be a child with a Father who loves to give. A ship in deep water asks for no favours from the wave; but a child in a safe home asks for everything, because love has cast out fear. So ask on. The Lord who touched that tender place around your eye will not neglect the rest of His work. He is no half-physician; when He begins a cure, He finishes it. The Tree of Life in glory bears twelve crops of fruit in the year, and its leaves are for healing. The healing of the nations, the healing of tired bodies and troubled minds, is not too great a thing for Him who once made spit and clay serve the blind man’s cure. Your teeth, your frame, the secret staining you long to have washed away, these are not outside His tender care. He cleanses not with soap and water only, but with His own blood and Spirit, and He makes the foulest clean.
And then there is your household, your whole family. You long for them to know this same salvation. That longing was planted in you by the Spirit who first taught you to taste that the Lord is gracious. It is the very nature of grace to overflow, like a spring that cannot keep its waters to itself. Remember the jailer of Philippi: when salvation came to his house, it came to “all that were in his house,” and they all believed, and they all rejoiced. The Lord knows how to open doors that seem locked forever. He knows how to send the right human helpers, a friend, a neighbour, a voice in a time of need, to speak the word that unlocks a hard heart. Trust Him for the timing, and keep praying without ceasing, even if only in the quiet of your own heart while you wash dishes or lie down at night. No place is wrong for prayer; no posture makes it more acceptable than a heart bowed low in need and faith.
And as you pray for your own and for all people to know salvation, remember this: the gospel is not a narrow, grudging thing. It is wine and milk, without money and without price. Come and buy, eat and be satisfied. The One who says “Look unto Me, and be saved” is the God before whom every false prop will crumble, and every true hope will stand eternally. He is enough. He was enough last night when the pain began to ease and the healing took hold; He will be enough tomorrow when fresh needs arise. The same Lord who held you in the dark is holding you now, and the arm that supported your head will not fail when the whole frame trembles.
May the Lord Jesus, who began this good work in you and upon you, carry it on until the day of His appearing. May He bind up every broken place in your body, give soundness to your teeth and strength to your frame, and cleanse you in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. May He bring the right friends and helpers to your side, the very ones chosen from before the foundation of the world to speak peace to your house. And may your whole household, from the least to the greatest, come to know Him whom to know is life eternal. Amen.