The sharp grip of pain in the body has a way of crowding out every other thought, doesn’t it? When the cramp comes, when the burning will not ease, the world shrinks down to the narrow walls of your own suffering, and even the sweeter promises can seem far away. But it is precisely there, in that narrow place, that your Savior draws nearest, for He knows the frame of your body. He does not despise the groaning of a troubled stomach any more than He despised the cry of blind Bartimaeus by the roadside. The very words you have breathed out, "Jesus, take away the pain", are the beginning of your healing, because they carry your need straight into the heart of the One who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
You may, in the watches of the night when sleep will not come, be tempted to think that so small a thing as indigestion is unworthy of His notice. But cast that thought out at once. The Lord who numbers the hairs of your head does not count your present trouble too trivial for His tenderness. His power is a healing power, and it bends low. I have often thought that our Lord is never more glorious than when He comes to those who are brought low and humbled by pain, when medicines bring no ease and rest is a stranger, and the soul is forced to lean entirely upon Him. That is not a pleasant school to be in, yet many a child of God has learned there what they never learned in the sunshine. The body groans, but the heart learns to cling. You may be sure that the Great Physician is not standing aloof. He is present in that room, in the dark, in the ache, and He is listening for the whisper that says, "Help me."
Consider this also: not all relief comes in a single stroke. Sometimes our Lord heals at once, as with a word, and the pain vanishes like mist before the morning sun. At other times He gives a measure of ease, a gradual restoring, teaching us to trust Him hour by hour. But whether He speaks the command and the affliction flees, or whether He gives strength to bear it until the hour of its departure, His love is the same. The black-edged envelope may carry a love letter inside; the pain that troubles you now may be the very vehicle by which He draws your eyes off the earth and fixes them upon Himself. And even in the waiting, there is this sweet consolation: your sins are forgiven you. The disease of sin, which would have been your everlasting ruin, He has already healed. Shall He do the greater and fail in the lesser? The stripes on His back were for your peace, and by those stripes every wound of ours is treasured up. The body's trouble is passing, but His finished work stands forever.
I would have you remember too that the Savior knows what it is to suffer in the body. He hungered, He thirsted, He knew weariness and pain in every nerve. When you tell Him your belly aches and your chest is tight, you are speaking to One who wore sinews and flesh and understands the language of bodily distress. Commend your digestion to Him in simple faith, and then, as far as you are able, leave it there. The anxious turning of the mind back upon the pain only feeds it. A quiet trust is often better medicine than any earthly physician can prescribe. The Lord can lay a cooling hand upon you, and it will be as the leaves from the tree of life, for healing, for calming, for restoring.
Let us bow together now, and put the matter where it belongs.
Lord Jesus, the Beloved Physician, look upon Your suffering servant. You who stilled the raging sea, speak peace to this troubled body. Take away the burning, quiet the spasm, and let the inward parts be calmed by Your sovereign will. And even before the pain subsides, grant such a sweet sense of Your presence that the soul rests in perfect confidence, knowing that You hear, You care, and You will do all things well. Amen.