The power and authority of Christ is not a hesitant thing, He speaks, and it is done. That unclean spirit in the synagogue cried out, but the Lord commanded him to hold his peace and come out, and the man was delivered in a moment. If the Lord wills it, the wheezing breath and the tightness of the chest must obey Him as surely as the demon did. He has but to say the word, and these airways will be opened, never to close again. Yet mark this: the greater miracle is not the healing of lungs, but the healing of the soul that cries to Him. Is it not a general rule with God, that when nothing else is left you, God remains and God appears? You have come to the end of yourself, and now you are casting yourself upon Him, this is good ground for hope.
Consider the woman bowed together for eighteen years. She did not ask, she did not pray, she did not even look at Him. But Christ saw her, called her to Himself, and laid His hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight. Oh, the sovereign compassion of the Master! He does not always wait for our eloquence; the sight of misery touches His heart. The asthma that you were born with, that has clung to you all these years, is not hidden from His eyes. He sees the struggle for each breath, the nights of restlessness, the fear of the next attack. And what is impossible with men is possible with God. Since the world began it was not heard that any man opened the eyes of one born blind, but Jesus did it, and the greater the impossibility, the greater the glory that comes to His name. That same Healer can open constricted lungs which have been bound from birth, and send health rushing through them like a river.
But hear this and hear it well: while you plead for the healing of the body, do not neglect the healing of the heart. Pardon and healing are one in the Gospel. When the Lord forgives, He often sends physical relief as a token of the greater work. Yet if He should choose to delay the outward cure, or if the thorn in the flesh should remain, His grace is sufficient. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and the least things that come from Him have virtue in them. Even a delay, even a continued trial, when sanctified, becomes a healing leaf that changes the life-blood and makes the nature other than it was before. Do not fall into the sin of those disciples who considered not the miracle of the loaves, Christ is grand in emergencies, and the greater your extremity, the more room there is for His miraculous power. You bring nothing but this desperate need, and that is precisely the kind of emptiness He delights to fill.
I charge you, then, to mingle faith with this petition. Say with holy boldness, "He coupled my disease with His own compassion; He has nothing to do with sin, but He has everything to do with the sinner who trusts Him. Let not the devil make you say, "Leave me alone with my asthma; it is my lot, and I must bear it." That is the wretched liberty to perish! Rather cry, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!" And know that the eternal Spirit comes with His own light and life, creating health where there was only disorder. Your body is not too hard a case for Him who raised Lazarus, dead, DEAD, and already stinking! If He speaks, life must come. Wait upon Him, then, with expectation. A Christian is a miracle, a mass of miracles, and his story in the telling will fill Heaven with enthusiasm. May the Sun of Righteousness rise upon you this very hour, with healing in His wings, so that you may stand straight and breathe deeply, and go forth leaping for joy, a living testimony to the power of Jesus Christ.