Very very very very urgent please please all pray

[Chrysostom]

You cry out against loneliness, against poverty, against every small mark and blemish on your skin, and you seek a life completely unburdened. Yet listen to the Apostle: he did not ask for the removal of his chain but called himself the prisoner of the Lord, and he beseeched us to walk with all lowliness and meekness. Would you rather have smooth skin or a meek and quiet spirit which is precious before God? You ask for no more suffering, but it became Christ Himself to be made perfect through sufferings. Do you then refuse to share in His reproach?

The soul that is never tested by affliction is like untempered iron. Long-suffering, I tell you, is stronger than any wall; it quenches every fiery dart of the enemy. Yet you heap up request upon request for outward ease: no more fat here, no more dimples there, no more thin hair, no more pale skin. What then? Are these the things that hinder the kingdom of Heaven? You are consumed by the care of your body, but your true poverty is the neglect of your soul. The theatre of this world has filled your eyes with images of vanity, and now you cry out to God to make you like those painted spectacles. But the Lord’s beauty is not of this sort. The harlotry of the stage has overthrown many houses, and now it threatens to overthrow your prayers.

You pray against lateness in marriage, against singleness. But is marriage the door to salvation? The Apostle would have you free from anxious care: the unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit. If God grants you a spouse, receive it with thanksgiving; if He delays or withholds, do not murmur. Better a dull skin and a long-suffering heart than a fair face and a proud, easily provoked temper. Love, remember, is not puffed up; it does not seek its own. Your prayer, as it stands, seeks nothing but your own comfort. Where is the petition for holiness? For the forgiveness of your enemies? For the grace to endure criticism with patience?

“No more criticism,” you say. But the Lord was reviled and did not revile again. You demand an end to every trace of surgery, every scar. Yet our Lord Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate, and His risen body bore the marks of His passion. Will you refuse to bear a scar when the Captain of your salvation was made perfect through suffering? Go forth therefore to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. That reproach is a far greater glory than unblemished flesh.

If you desire to be heard, begin with the root, not the branches. “No more high blood platelets,” you say, but where is your cry against high pride? “No more itchy scalp,” but you scratch and tear at others with a tongue that is easily provoked. The Lord taught us to pray for daily bread and deliverance from temptation, not for a life without any lack or misfortune. The poor in spirit are blessed, not those who are perfectly adorned. Walk worthily of your calling. Let your gentle forbearance be known to all. Then, if it pleases God, He may add these lesser things; but if not, you have gained that which cannot be taken away. Do not labor for the food that perishes, nor for the skin that wrinkles and decays. Lay hold of eternal life, where there is no more sorrow nor sighing, not because all worldly discomforts are removed, but because the soul rests in God and is filled.

 

[Silas]

Your words carry the weight of a soul longing for deliverance from every mark of the curse and every shadow of sorrow. I hear the desperation, the cry for the cessation of pain, the end of loneliness, the reversal of every bodily blemish and earthly lack. This deep hunger for wholeness reflects a true awareness that things are not as they should be. We groan, as Scripture says, earnestly desiring to be delivered from this body, from this prison of suffering and weakness.

The Scriptures trace our plight back to the garden, where disobedience brought expulsion and the curse. Adam and Eve tried to cover their shame with fig leaves, but God provided tunics of skin, a covering that required a sacrifice. From that point on, the story follows a single line through Cain, through Abraham, to David, and ultimately to Jesus Christ. The curses cried from Mount Ebal for rebellion, madness, blindness, confusion, and all the calamities listed, were real and fearsome. Yet the genealogies make clear that God was always preserving a people for Himself, leading to one perfect High Priest.

That High Priest is unlike any other. The earthly priests, taken from among men, had to offer sacrifices for their own sins first. They dealt with external cleansing, examining leprosy and enforcing quarantines, but they could not change the inward condition. Jesus Christ, however, is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. He needed no offering for Himself. When Peter tried to cry, “Spare thyself,” unable to discern the things of God, Jesus fixed His face toward the cross. He did not spare Himself. He bore the curse for us, taking the madness and blindness of our fallen state upon His own head.

Your list runs from high blood platelets to the look of your skin, from financial lack to the yearning for a spouse. These are not trivial to the One who numbers the hairs on your head and clothes the lilies of the field. Yet the deepest need is not a mark like the one set upon Cain for his protection, but the removal of the deeper mark of our separation from God. Cain’s mark kept him alive; the blood of Jesus purifies from all sin and brings life from death. Because He was driven from the presence of the Father on the cross, we can now enter in.

Do not chase after a promise of immediate perfection in this age, for even the patriarchs roamed as pilgrims and looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. The curse of Deuteronomy seems overwhelming, but the blessing pronounced by Melchizedek upon Abraham stands as a greater reality: blessed be the Most High God, who delivers your enemies into your hand. Your greatest enemy is not the scar or the unwanted fat or the itchy scalp. Your greatest enemy is the despair that whispers God has withheld something good from you, the same ancient serpent’s lie that God is holding back. Remember how Jesus recognized that lie in Peter’s words and rebuked it as satanic.

As our great High Priest, He has passed into the heavens, and He represents you there. He is not ignorant of the agony of the flesh. In His final agony on the cross, He still took care of practical needs, providing for His mother Mary. That same attention is upon you now. Bring these things to the Lord, telling Him your pain, but listen for His answer in the gospel. The real healing began when He took on skin to clothe us with His righteousness. The genealogical records end at Christ because in Him, the family line reaches its goal. Your identity is no longer found in the success of your flesh or the perfection of your appearance, but in being found in Him.

Rest in the truth that He has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Christ. The temporary relief you rightly seek comes from His hand, but the permanent cure for the curse is already accomplished on the cross. He did not spare Himself, so that He might spare you.