Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer request caught my attention, and the simple weight of those words, "I’m scared", is not lost on me. Fear can be completely debilitating. It can grip your thoughts, color everything you see, and make the threat in front of you seem bigger than God himself. That is where the battle is fought first. The enemy of your soul wants that fear to gain such a foothold that you lose sight of God in the middle of the crisis. Remember, the Lord comforts those who are cast down. He does not want you defined by a spirit of fear.
Think about what happened to Paul when he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. There he sat for three days in absolute darkness, not eating or drinking. I believe a tremendous revolution was happening in his mind during that time. And in that darkness, the Lord gave him a vision of a man named Ananias coming to pray for him. God did not leave him without hope in his blindness; he sent a word and a messenger. Paul’s temporary loss of physical sight gave way to a far greater spiritual sight, where he realized that everything he once prided himself on was loss compared to the excellency of knowing Jesus Christ. Sometimes the Lord allows us to reach a place where our other senses and securities are stripped back so that we may know him more deeply.
We also need to be careful about drawing a direct line, assuming sickness or the threat of it is always a specific punishment. Good people suffer with illnesses. Faithful men and women face cancer and other grave diagnoses. It is not necessarily a one-to-one cause and effect from God. Jesus himself healed blindness in many different ways. Sometimes he spoke a word, other times he touched their eyes, and once he made mud and told the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The method varied, but the power remained the same. Our part is to come to him with the same raw honesty you have already shown, seeking his touch in whatever form he chooses to extend it.
Right now, the work is to replace that grip of fear with a holy, reverent awe before your God. The kind of fear the scriptures truly encourage is not a dread that God is going to hurt you, but a deep, loving concern that we might hurt him by our unbelief. The promise stands: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will help you. I will strengthen you. I will uphold you by the right hand of my power." His presence is the answer. He is the one who works in you to fulfill his good purpose, even while you are trembling. Your part is to work out what he is already working in, to actively choose trust over terror.
I am joining my prayers with yours, asking that if there is any physical cause threatening your sight, the Lord would grant healing, whether by his direct word or through the hands of those he has gifted with medical skill. Even more, I am asking that the inner vision of your heart would be filled with his peace, so that you can say with confidence, "I counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ." We do not know what tomorrow holds, but we know the one who holds tomorrow. And he will be with you, even in the darkness, working a revolution of trust in your soul. Let us reason together with the Lord, asking him to teach us to number our days rightly, not out of panic, but with a heart of wisdom. You are not alone in this.
Think about what happened to Paul when he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. There he sat for three days in absolute darkness, not eating or drinking. I believe a tremendous revolution was happening in his mind during that time. And in that darkness, the Lord gave him a vision of a man named Ananias coming to pray for him. God did not leave him without hope in his blindness; he sent a word and a messenger. Paul’s temporary loss of physical sight gave way to a far greater spiritual sight, where he realized that everything he once prided himself on was loss compared to the excellency of knowing Jesus Christ. Sometimes the Lord allows us to reach a place where our other senses and securities are stripped back so that we may know him more deeply.
We also need to be careful about drawing a direct line, assuming sickness or the threat of it is always a specific punishment. Good people suffer with illnesses. Faithful men and women face cancer and other grave diagnoses. It is not necessarily a one-to-one cause and effect from God. Jesus himself healed blindness in many different ways. Sometimes he spoke a word, other times he touched their eyes, and once he made mud and told the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The method varied, but the power remained the same. Our part is to come to him with the same raw honesty you have already shown, seeking his touch in whatever form he chooses to extend it.
Right now, the work is to replace that grip of fear with a holy, reverent awe before your God. The kind of fear the scriptures truly encourage is not a dread that God is going to hurt you, but a deep, loving concern that we might hurt him by our unbelief. The promise stands: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will help you. I will strengthen you. I will uphold you by the right hand of my power." His presence is the answer. He is the one who works in you to fulfill his good purpose, even while you are trembling. Your part is to work out what he is already working in, to actively choose trust over terror.
I am joining my prayers with yours, asking that if there is any physical cause threatening your sight, the Lord would grant healing, whether by his direct word or through the hands of those he has gifted with medical skill. Even more, I am asking that the inner vision of your heart would be filled with his peace, so that you can say with confidence, "I counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ." We do not know what tomorrow holds, but we know the one who holds tomorrow. And he will be with you, even in the darkness, working a revolution of trust in your soul. Let us reason together with the Lord, asking him to teach us to number our days rightly, not out of panic, but with a heart of wisdom. You are not alone in this.
