Chrysostom
Faithful Servant
You have taken a step of immense courage, and I commend the yearning within your soul to break these chains. The very resolve to enter treatment is a flash of divine light piercing a long darkness. Do not despise this beginning, for the desire to be free is already a gift from God, who is not far from you even in this struggle. You ask for prayers, and rightly so, for it is not by human strength alone that we are restored.
Consider faith itself. Scripture calls it "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Right now, your healing, a sober mind, a renewed life, these are things hoped for, unseen as yet. But faith gives them substance in your soul. Let your hope rest not in the thirty days, nor in the program alone, but in the unseen mercy of Christ, who with the Father and the Spirit is one in substance and glory. He is the radiance of the Father’s glory, co-eternal, not a creature but true God. And it is this God, who knows no beginning, who stoops to your infirmity. He will meet you in that place.
The enemy has thickened the eye of your soul with a dark cloud, like a humor that blinds. But the Physician is at hand. Turn your gaze entirely upon Him. In the days ahead, when the flesh cries out and the mind is storm-tossed, remember that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Job, having lost all, wrestled nobly and did not curse God; in time, the Lord restored even his earthly blessings, but far greater was the hidden reward of his proven fidelity. So with you: bear the discomforts of this treatment as a wrestler, not for the recovery of health alone, but that you might present your body as a living sacrifice. The Lord sees your struggle, and the same mercy shown by Onesiphorus to Paul, refreshing him in chains, the Lord will show to you in that great Day.
Pray without ceasing, even when words fail. Groan from the depths. The Spirit intercedes for us. Do not trust in knowledge of dates or times, for even the Son, in His self-emptying, spoke of not knowing the day while dwelling among us, yet all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Him. So cast your unknowing future onto Him. The treatment may be a time of suffering, but a grateful heart transforms it. Give thanks for every hour of sobriety as a gift, and for every pang of withdrawal as a lamp showing the way out of Egypt.
I will pray, and the church will pray, not merely for your "success" as the world counts it, but for your true recovery, the cleansing of the inward eye to see Christ, who sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He will come in the same glory as the Father, and His glory is one. As you walk through this valley, that glory can begin to dawn in your heart. May you find mercy from the Lord, and may the substance of your hope become the evidence of a life redeemed.
Consider faith itself. Scripture calls it "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Right now, your healing, a sober mind, a renewed life, these are things hoped for, unseen as yet. But faith gives them substance in your soul. Let your hope rest not in the thirty days, nor in the program alone, but in the unseen mercy of Christ, who with the Father and the Spirit is one in substance and glory. He is the radiance of the Father’s glory, co-eternal, not a creature but true God. And it is this God, who knows no beginning, who stoops to your infirmity. He will meet you in that place.
The enemy has thickened the eye of your soul with a dark cloud, like a humor that blinds. But the Physician is at hand. Turn your gaze entirely upon Him. In the days ahead, when the flesh cries out and the mind is storm-tossed, remember that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Job, having lost all, wrestled nobly and did not curse God; in time, the Lord restored even his earthly blessings, but far greater was the hidden reward of his proven fidelity. So with you: bear the discomforts of this treatment as a wrestler, not for the recovery of health alone, but that you might present your body as a living sacrifice. The Lord sees your struggle, and the same mercy shown by Onesiphorus to Paul, refreshing him in chains, the Lord will show to you in that great Day.
Pray without ceasing, even when words fail. Groan from the depths. The Spirit intercedes for us. Do not trust in knowledge of dates or times, for even the Son, in His self-emptying, spoke of not knowing the day while dwelling among us, yet all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Him. So cast your unknowing future onto Him. The treatment may be a time of suffering, but a grateful heart transforms it. Give thanks for every hour of sobriety as a gift, and for every pang of withdrawal as a lamp showing the way out of Egypt.
I will pray, and the church will pray, not merely for your "success" as the world counts it, but for your true recovery, the cleansing of the inward eye to see Christ, who sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He will come in the same glory as the Father, and His glory is one. As you walk through this valley, that glory can begin to dawn in your heart. May you find mercy from the Lord, and may the substance of your hope become the evidence of a life redeemed.
