Silas
Beloved of All
I am moved by the heavy weight you are carrying as you watch a loved one’s body fail and remember the long years of prayer that seem to meet only silence. Heaven’s quiet is one of the hardest tests of faith. We cry out, “Lord, don’t you care that we are perishing?” and the waves feel ready to swallow us. Yet Scripture shows us that a silent Jesus is not an absent Jesus. He heard the Canaanite woman before He spoke a word, and when He finally answered, her need was fully met. Your many prayers are not forgotten. Even now, the One who has all authority in the spiritual realm, the physical realm, and over every sickness holds this dear woman in His sight.
What stands out in your request is that the deepest need has never been addressed: the old crutch she leaned on instead of the living God. That hidden thing has a way of exacting a terrible cost on the body, a tangible echo of a heart that has not yet fully yielded. The Lord’s great interest is always the heart. Out of the heart flow all the issues of life, and defilement, and also healing. Jesus told us that what comes out of the mouth reveals what is inside, but He also came to give a new heart. I suspect that for your daughter’s aunt, the immediate crisis of failing lungs and a weakening heart is, in a profound sense, connected to a heart that needs a deeper, renewing work of the Spirit. The gospel of the kingdom is still good news for the broken, Jesus went about healing every disease, and Isaiah’s prophecy about the suffering servant encompasses not only the healing of our souls from sin but the healing of our bodies. We do not need to confine His power to one realm.
And yet, the greatest miracle is always the forgiveness of sins. Whether or not her earthly frame is restored, her eternal standing is settled because she knows Jesus. That does not make the present suffering light, but it anchors hope. In the law, God made provision for even incurable conditions, reserving room for His own hand to move. So we can boldly ask for a mighty intervention, while resting in the truth that Jesus has already taken the ultimate sting away.
Do not underestimate what God might yet do when a soul finally turns from that lifelong prop and lets the Lord become her true high tower. David often spoke of God as his defense and his rock, even when he had failed miserably. He learned to commit his ways to the Lord, to trust that God could handle what was beyond him. This might be a season where you lay that aunt at Jesus’ feet with a cry of faith and then step back, refusing to fret, because the Lord is perfectly capable of defending Himself and doing His own work in her heart. He does not need our striving; He asks for our trust.
The Lord has placed that burden on your heart, He works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure. It is no small thing to carry another like this, and I will join my prayers to yours. Let us ask that the One who stilled the storm would speak peace to her body, and even more, that He would gently expose and heal every unaddressed chamber of her heart. And as you wait, do not let the silence convince you that He does not care. When Jesus is on board, the boat cannot sink.
What stands out in your request is that the deepest need has never been addressed: the old crutch she leaned on instead of the living God. That hidden thing has a way of exacting a terrible cost on the body, a tangible echo of a heart that has not yet fully yielded. The Lord’s great interest is always the heart. Out of the heart flow all the issues of life, and defilement, and also healing. Jesus told us that what comes out of the mouth reveals what is inside, but He also came to give a new heart. I suspect that for your daughter’s aunt, the immediate crisis of failing lungs and a weakening heart is, in a profound sense, connected to a heart that needs a deeper, renewing work of the Spirit. The gospel of the kingdom is still good news for the broken, Jesus went about healing every disease, and Isaiah’s prophecy about the suffering servant encompasses not only the healing of our souls from sin but the healing of our bodies. We do not need to confine His power to one realm.
And yet, the greatest miracle is always the forgiveness of sins. Whether or not her earthly frame is restored, her eternal standing is settled because she knows Jesus. That does not make the present suffering light, but it anchors hope. In the law, God made provision for even incurable conditions, reserving room for His own hand to move. So we can boldly ask for a mighty intervention, while resting in the truth that Jesus has already taken the ultimate sting away.
Do not underestimate what God might yet do when a soul finally turns from that lifelong prop and lets the Lord become her true high tower. David often spoke of God as his defense and his rock, even when he had failed miserably. He learned to commit his ways to the Lord, to trust that God could handle what was beyond him. This might be a season where you lay that aunt at Jesus’ feet with a cry of faith and then step back, refusing to fret, because the Lord is perfectly capable of defending Himself and doing His own work in her heart. He does not need our striving; He asks for our trust.
The Lord has placed that burden on your heart, He works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure. It is no small thing to carry another like this, and I will join my prayers to yours. Let us ask that the One who stilled the storm would speak peace to her body, and even more, that He would gently expose and heal every unaddressed chamber of her heart. And as you wait, do not let the silence convince you that He does not care. When Jesus is on board, the boat cannot sink.
