Prayer request

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer of thanksgiving for God's goodness is good and right, and I have heard your requests before the Lord with care.

I join you in giving thanks, and I pray with you for good rest. God Himself gives sleep to His beloved for the renewing of the body, and He also gives rest to the soul when we cast our cares upon Him. May He grant you quiet nights and a peaceful heart, that you may wake refreshed to serve Him with a clear mind.

For your wife, I pray for health and strength. As it is written, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, and He is the Savior of the body. This headship is not for pride but for love, forethought and care, that you may love her and nourish her as Christ loves the Church. May the Lord who is the true health of the body lay His healing hand upon her, sustain her, and help you to love and support her faithfully in this need.

For the one you have entrusted to God for protection, and for your household, I ask the Lord to keep you under His watch. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, and His eye is upon those who trust Him. May He guard you from harm and from the snares of the enemy.

For your financial needs and for your car, I pray that God in His goodness will provide what is necessary and grant you wisdom to find a cost effective and honest solution. We do not ask Him for luxury, but for what is needed for health and for duty, that we may live with contentment and use what He provides for good. May He open a way for you and teach you to be a good steward of what He entrusts to you.

For your struggle against lustful thoughts, I urge you to take heart and to walk by the Spirit, for then you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Scripture says, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. This does not mean we neglect the body, but that we provide for it only for health and not for wantonness. Luxury is fuel for lust, it lights the furnace and makes the flame stronger. But a body cared for with simplicity and a mind set on spiritual things remains clear and strong. Prune away what kindles desire, whether it be excess in food or drink, idle images, or lingering looks, and spend your energy on the care of spiritual things, on prayer, on the Word, and on useful labor. When such thoughts come, turn at once to prayer and to a psalm, and do not give them provision or place. God is able to keep you, and many who were sick have become healthy by His grace when they watched and remained earnest.

Let us pray together. Father in heaven, we thank You for Your goodness. Grant to Your servant restful sleep and a renewed body and mind. Touch his wife and grant her health, and help him to love her as Christ loves the Church. Set Your protection around them and the one they have named before You. Provide for their financial need and guide them to a wise and affordable answer for the car. Cleanse his heart and mind, teach him to walk by Your Spirit, to make no provision for the flesh for lust, and to live for what is holy and good. Keep him in Your grace, that he may preserve what he has received and grow in love for You. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Gratitude to God is the right place to begin, and it is good that you started there. Scripture calls us to give thanks in all things, and a thankful heart keeps our other requests in proper perspective.

I join you in praying for rest. True rest is a gift from the Lord, both for the body and for the soul. May He quiet your mind and grant you deep, renewing sleep as you trust Him with the cares of the day, casting your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.

For your wife, I pray for the Lord's healing hand and sustaining grace upon her health. God calls a husband to honor his wife, to watch over her and care for her tenderly as a fellow heir of the grace of life. As you love her and cherish her, may the Lord strengthen her body and encourage both of you. Even when health is tested, as it was for Job, we can trust that God remains sovereign and good, and that He hears the prayers of His people.

For protection, I ask the Lord to keep you and your loved ones under the shadow of His wings. He is our refuge and fortress, and we can ask Him to guard you from harm and from the evil one.

For your financial needs and the car issue, I pray that God will provide a wise and cost effective solution. Scripture reminds us that we do not always know what is best for us, whether it is better in God's purposes to have much or little, to be in health or in difficulty, but He does know. Sometimes He keeps us in dependence so that we will continue to trust Him day by day for our provision. The world and all its striving passes away, but doing the will of God endures. Ask Him for wisdom, for favor, and for contentment as you trust Him to supply what you need according to His riches in Christ.

Concerning lustful thoughts, thank you for your honesty before the Lord. This is a battle many face, and Scripture is very clear about it. Lust can quickly become a master that enslaves a man, whether it is the desire for immorality or for other pleasures. The enemy works in this area through what the apostle John calls the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. From the garden onward he has used what looks good to the eyes and what appeals to the flesh to draw hearts away. Today the opportunities to feed those desires are everywhere, through images and media that open floodgates to the mind.

God's answer is not simply to try harder to resist, but to turn your heart toward what He has given. He designed sexual intimacy as a precious gift to be confined to the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Within that covenant, you are called to find your full satisfaction in your wife, to rejoice in her and to let your love be fully given to her. Proverbs counsels a man to be satisfied with his own fountain and not to be captivated by the beauty or allure of another. There is no real love in lust for a stranger, only emptiness. Solomon pursued every pleasure of the flesh and the eyes and found it all empty apart from God.

So bring these thoughts into the light before the Lord, confess them quickly, and ask Him to renew your mind. Guard what your eyes see, refuse to linger on what stirs lust, and do not lust after beauty in your heart. Fill your mind with what is pure and fix your affections on Christ and on loving your wife well. Within marriage, Scripture teaches that husband and wife belong to one another and should not withhold themselves but give themselves to one another in love, except by mutual consent for a time devoted to prayer. That mutual love and faithfulness is God's protection against temptation.

May the Lord give you victory as you walk by the Spirit and not fulfill the desires of the flesh. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You for Your goodness. I ask You to grant rest, to touch and strengthen this wife in her health, to set Your protection around this family, to provide financially and to open the door to an affordable and wise solution for the car, and to give purity of heart and mind. Help this brother to find his joy and satisfaction in You and in the wife You have given him, to turn from every lust of the flesh and eyes, and to live to do Your will. Cleanse him, fill him with Your Spirit, and keep him close to You. Amen.