Silas
Beloved of All
Your tiredness is heard, and it is right to bring it to Jesus for strength, healing and guidance. When you have no strength left in yourself, Scripture points you to a different source. The Lord Himself becomes your light and your salvation and your strength, so you do not need to be afraid. He watches over His own and keeps them. He is a shield for those who trust Him, and when the heart trusts Him help comes, and that help turns into rejoicing and praise. The promise is that the Lord will give strength to His people and bless His people with peace. He lifts up those who are weary and does not let their enemies rejoice over them.
He also meets you as healer. One of His names reveals Him as the Lord who heals, and the prophet Isaiah said He bore our infirmities, a word Matthew applies to the physical healings of Jesus when He healed the leper, the servant of the centurion, Peter's mother in law and multitudes who were sick and oppressed. The Gospels show a large part of Jesus ministry was touching and healing those who were afflicted, with power in the physical realm and authority in the spiritual realm. That same Jesus still heals, but not always in the same pattern. Sometimes healing is instant with a touch or a word, sometimes it is gradual, the only gradual healing recorded in His ministry shows that, and sometimes it comes through the slow natural processes He Himself built into our bodies, which are no less divine because they are natural. He also brings healing to the mind and emotions, mending wounds and scars within. There is much about healing we do not understand, and we cannot presume He wills it in the same way in every case, as Paul prayed three times for his thorn and learned that God's strength is made perfect in weakness, yet we can confidently ask, knowing Jesus went about teaching and preaching and healing every sickness and disease, and that He never turned away those who sincerely sought help.
That is why prayer and the Word are your place of strength. Jesus Himself, after ministering to crowds, would withdraw to pray, and prayer became His place of renewal. When you bring every problem to the Lord in prayer you are brought into a position of confidence and victory. And as you give to the Lord the glory and strength that are due Him, you begin to see your problems in the light of His power rather than in the light of your own weakness. If God reigns upon His throne over all the universe, then it is meaningful that this same God will give you strength. Let His Word become your portion and your stay. David learned this. He began his life trusting the Lord's strength to face the giant, and in old age he prayed to go still in the strength of the Lord, asking not to be cast off when his own strength failed. The danger in later years is to trust in our own strength or riches, but the blessed person is the one whose strength is in the Lord, who has learned his own frailty and put his trust there. That person, even passing through the valley of weeping, finds God turns it into a place of refreshment and wells of water, and goes from strength to strength until he appears before God. God's promises change an attitude of defeat into one of victory, because you know He has promised to give the victory. He is your strong tower and shelter, the covering of His wings where you can abide.
So I pray for you now that the Lord will give you what you have asked according to His wisdom and love. May He give you His strength for this weary season, His healing touch in body, mind and spirit as He wills, whether instant or gradual, and His clear guidance through His Word and by His Spirit. May He bless you with His peace that steadies the heart, keep His hand upon you, and give you strength to endure until the day He makes all things right and Jesus reigns forever.
He also meets you as healer. One of His names reveals Him as the Lord who heals, and the prophet Isaiah said He bore our infirmities, a word Matthew applies to the physical healings of Jesus when He healed the leper, the servant of the centurion, Peter's mother in law and multitudes who were sick and oppressed. The Gospels show a large part of Jesus ministry was touching and healing those who were afflicted, with power in the physical realm and authority in the spiritual realm. That same Jesus still heals, but not always in the same pattern. Sometimes healing is instant with a touch or a word, sometimes it is gradual, the only gradual healing recorded in His ministry shows that, and sometimes it comes through the slow natural processes He Himself built into our bodies, which are no less divine because they are natural. He also brings healing to the mind and emotions, mending wounds and scars within. There is much about healing we do not understand, and we cannot presume He wills it in the same way in every case, as Paul prayed three times for his thorn and learned that God's strength is made perfect in weakness, yet we can confidently ask, knowing Jesus went about teaching and preaching and healing every sickness and disease, and that He never turned away those who sincerely sought help.
That is why prayer and the Word are your place of strength. Jesus Himself, after ministering to crowds, would withdraw to pray, and prayer became His place of renewal. When you bring every problem to the Lord in prayer you are brought into a position of confidence and victory. And as you give to the Lord the glory and strength that are due Him, you begin to see your problems in the light of His power rather than in the light of your own weakness. If God reigns upon His throne over all the universe, then it is meaningful that this same God will give you strength. Let His Word become your portion and your stay. David learned this. He began his life trusting the Lord's strength to face the giant, and in old age he prayed to go still in the strength of the Lord, asking not to be cast off when his own strength failed. The danger in later years is to trust in our own strength or riches, but the blessed person is the one whose strength is in the Lord, who has learned his own frailty and put his trust there. That person, even passing through the valley of weeping, finds God turns it into a place of refreshment and wells of water, and goes from strength to strength until he appears before God. God's promises change an attitude of defeat into one of victory, because you know He has promised to give the victory. He is your strong tower and shelter, the covering of His wings where you can abide.
So I pray for you now that the Lord will give you what you have asked according to His wisdom and love. May He give you His strength for this weary season, His healing touch in body, mind and spirit as He wills, whether instant or gradual, and His clear guidance through His Word and by His Spirit. May He bless you with His peace that steadies the heart, keep His hand upon you, and give you strength to endure until the day He makes all things right and Jesus reigns forever.
