Pray for ### good health and long life

[Chrysostom]

You bring to the church a request for bodily healing and for relief from the crushing weight of debt. These are real pains, and it is right to cry out to the Physician of souls and bodies. But let me not soothe you with soft words while you are perishing in another way. What does it profit a man if his liver is made whole and his financial credit is restored, yet his soul remains diseased by indolence and softness? You ask for a long life for your mother, but a long life spent in the sickness of worldly anxiety is only a longer punishment. You seek to escape the ruin of poverty, but be much more terrified of the ruin that comes from a worthless joy, a laughter that brings forth gnashing of teeth.

You see the physical ailment, the fatty liver, and you seek medicine for the body. But do you not see that the Lord who healed the servant’s ear and cast the enemies to the ground did so to awaken souls? That healing of flesh was a sign to prove a greater truth: that we should fear not those who can injure the body, but the sickness of sin which destroys the soul. Is your grief for your mother’s bodily organ greater than your grief for any unrepented sin in her life or your own? I fear you are treating the body while the soul is left unattended. You desire a table of financial stability, but be careful you are not indifferently partaking of the table of hostile and degraded things, loving the world’s credit more than the conscience’s peace.

You speak of the loss of your earthly father, and it is a heavy affliction. But let that affliction be the kind from which ease springs up. Use the pain of that loss to labor a little time in godly grief, that you may not groan in the life which is endless. Do not merely seek a “good future in His arms” as a balm for your present discomfort, while remaining without feeling for your own transgressions. The true and matchless beauty, the gift that makes even martyrdom profitable, is love. And love does not primarily seek a healthy liver or a monthly sum of ten thousand. It seeks to cleanse itself from all worldly things, to be afflicted with the affliction that brings forth eternal ease.

You may feel you have heard such words before and remained insensible. I know the tree that receives many strokes before it falls. The repeated discourse is the medicine that brings the disorder to a point where a final cure can take hold. I do not cease speaking because you remain in sickness; it would be cruelty to stop the treatment. I say these things not to doubt your faith, but to make it approved, to provoke you to forwardness.

Understand this: the very request for a “holistic help” must begin with the soul’s purification. Strike your roots deep into the soil of obedience, and then you will understand what provision truly means. You are not perishing in one way alone; to escape the snare of debt only to be captured by softness is to lose the crop in another field. The Lord whom you petition was daily teaching, and they did not lay hold on Him until He permitted it. Entrust your needs to that sovereign will, but first seek the healing treatment of repentance. Then, whether in want or in plenty, in sickness or in health, you will not be brought down, because your life will have been founded on the love that never fails.

 

[Silas]

I join you in lifting your mother before the Lord, asking for His healing touch upon her liver and for a full restoration of her health. The Scriptures remind us that our hope is in God, who is the health of our countenance. Even in the midst of physical distress, we can yet praise Him, trusting that He holds every cell of our bodies in His care. At the same time, we do well to attend to the wisdom He has given: the liver can be deeply harmed by what we put into it, and it can only handle so much. True healing often walks hand in hand with prudent, godly choices about how we treat these temples of the Holy Spirit. I pray that He grants you both clarity and discipline in this, along with the supernatural touch only He can give.

Regarding the financial weight you carry, know that your God is not in crisis, nor does He need to be bailed out by our efforts. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and His resources are never exhausted. The prophet Haggai once confronted people who were working hard yet never seemed to have enough; the root was that they had neglected to put God first in their trust and their giving. When we bring our first fruits to Him, not as a payment for blessing but as an act of worship and reliance, He honors that faith. Your need is real, and the monthly bills are pressing, but the Lord is able to provide in ways you cannot imagine. I pray that He opens doors of employment and supplies your every need, not so that you can simply escape debt, but so that through your testimony thanksgiving may overflow to God.

The loss of your father is a deep sorrow. Isaac mourned his mother for three long years, and it was not until Rebekah came that he found comfort. God sees that pain, and He has promised to be a Father to the fatherless and a defender of widows. May He hold you and your mother close, guide your steps each moment, and let your souls prosper even as you walk through these trials. I echo the apostle’s prayer that a person would flourish in body and health even as his soul was prospering. That is my prayer for you both: that your physical and financial state would rise to match the spiritual vitality He is cultivating in you.

We are standing with you in prayer, confident that He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion. Keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith.