Silas
Beloved of All
Your heartfelt prayer has been received with care and compassion, and the depth of distress you describe is not hidden from the Lord. He sees everything about you, nothing is hidden from Him, and He looks upon you with sympathetic understanding of your weaknesses and needs. As we see suffering in bodies that are broken or weary, our hearts are moved with compassion, and how much more is the heart of Jesus moved toward you in all of this pain, embarrassment, loneliness and exhaustion.
It is right to bring your body and its many afflictions to Jesus, because He went about doing good and healing all kinds of sickness. In ancient times there were conditions like leprosy that had no human cure and only progressed and destroyed, and the only hope for such a person was the direct healing work of God. The Lord still has that same power and compassion today, and He invites you to bring every physical burden to Him, your skin, your eyes, your hair, your breathing, your sleep, your hormones and all the weariness you carry.
Yet Scripture teaches that the greatest need any of us has is not the healing of the body but the forgiveness of sins and salvation through Jesus Christ alone. Simply believing that God exists does not save, for even the evil spirits believe and tremble before Him. Salvation comes only through trusting Jesus Christ, who gave His body to be broken and His blood to be shed for the remission of sins, and who rose again. When a man was brought for healing, Jesus first addressed the deeper issue and spoke of forgiveness, while the people around were only interested in the healing of the body. We are often prone to pray only about symptoms and to ask God to fix what we feel and see, without first attending to the root need of the heart. It is far better to enter heaven whole in Christ, even if the body is afflicted here, than to have a perfect body and be without Him. So first, be sure your hope is fully placed in Jesus as Savior, receiving His forgiveness and new life.
There is sometimes a connection between sin and physical suffering, as when a life of excess harms the body, but not all suffering comes from personal sin. What is always needed is to feed the spiritual life as faithfully as we feed the physical life. Many are diligent to care for the body but irregular in feeding the spirit, and if we fed the body as poorly as we sometimes feed the spirit we would not survive. Prayer and the Word of God feed the spirit as food feeds the body. As the Word comes in, there is a transforming power that changes us into the image of Christ, like seed that springs up and grows though we do not fully understand how. Give time each day to the Word and to prayer, and also receive the rest God made for your benefit. He made a rhythm of rest for man because the body needs recuperation and a change of pace.
For the anxiety, fear, nervousness, depression, sleeplessness and sorrow you name, the Lord offers His peace and His nearness. He does not want you to live under a sense of curses, generational curses, bad luck or misfortune. In Christ, the curse has been broken, for He bore it for us, and no weapon formed against His child can separate you from His love. Disappointment, rejection, criticism, delay and slow progress are painful, but God can even use disagreements and hard seasons to expand His work and to mature us, as He once used a sharp disagreement to form two teams where there had been one. He can use what feels like setback for good.
Your loneliness and your desire for marriage are also before Him. Singleness is not a curse and being without a spouse does not mean you are forgotten or less valued. Marriage, as Scripture presents it, is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and sexual intimacy and living together belong within that covenant. Whether He leads you to marriage or calls you to serve Him in singleness for a season, your worth and your belonging are secure in Christ. There is a bond within the body of Christ that is closer than natural family ties, and He places His people in a family of faith where love and fellowship can be found. Ask Him to deepen that fellowship around you while you wait on His timing, rather than measuring your life by lateness or by comparison with others.
Your present need for daily provision and a place to live is also seen by Him. He knows the strain of limited space and lack, and He cares about your practical needs.
Our ultimate hope for the body is the resurrection. Jesus affirmed that the dead will rise, and in that resurrection there will be no more sickness, deformity or decay. The questions we have now about how bodies are restored will be fully answered then, for God will make all things new. Until then, we bring every request to Him and trust His wisdom about when and how He answers. He may bring healing now, He may sustain you through ongoing weakness, and He will certainly bring complete healing in the resurrection.
So we pray for you not only for relief of each symptom you listed, but first for a deep assurance of salvation in Jesus, for peace that guards your heart and mind, for restful sleep, for comfort in loneliness, for freedom from fear, for wisdom for any medical care you need for your breathing and blood and other conditions, and for growing strength in the inner person through His Word. May you be built up in Christ until you are mature in Him, bearing fruit and being changed day by day into His likeness, knowing that you are fully seen, fully loved, and held by Him.
It is right to bring your body and its many afflictions to Jesus, because He went about doing good and healing all kinds of sickness. In ancient times there were conditions like leprosy that had no human cure and only progressed and destroyed, and the only hope for such a person was the direct healing work of God. The Lord still has that same power and compassion today, and He invites you to bring every physical burden to Him, your skin, your eyes, your hair, your breathing, your sleep, your hormones and all the weariness you carry.
Yet Scripture teaches that the greatest need any of us has is not the healing of the body but the forgiveness of sins and salvation through Jesus Christ alone. Simply believing that God exists does not save, for even the evil spirits believe and tremble before Him. Salvation comes only through trusting Jesus Christ, who gave His body to be broken and His blood to be shed for the remission of sins, and who rose again. When a man was brought for healing, Jesus first addressed the deeper issue and spoke of forgiveness, while the people around were only interested in the healing of the body. We are often prone to pray only about symptoms and to ask God to fix what we feel and see, without first attending to the root need of the heart. It is far better to enter heaven whole in Christ, even if the body is afflicted here, than to have a perfect body and be without Him. So first, be sure your hope is fully placed in Jesus as Savior, receiving His forgiveness and new life.
There is sometimes a connection between sin and physical suffering, as when a life of excess harms the body, but not all suffering comes from personal sin. What is always needed is to feed the spiritual life as faithfully as we feed the physical life. Many are diligent to care for the body but irregular in feeding the spirit, and if we fed the body as poorly as we sometimes feed the spirit we would not survive. Prayer and the Word of God feed the spirit as food feeds the body. As the Word comes in, there is a transforming power that changes us into the image of Christ, like seed that springs up and grows though we do not fully understand how. Give time each day to the Word and to prayer, and also receive the rest God made for your benefit. He made a rhythm of rest for man because the body needs recuperation and a change of pace.
For the anxiety, fear, nervousness, depression, sleeplessness and sorrow you name, the Lord offers His peace and His nearness. He does not want you to live under a sense of curses, generational curses, bad luck or misfortune. In Christ, the curse has been broken, for He bore it for us, and no weapon formed against His child can separate you from His love. Disappointment, rejection, criticism, delay and slow progress are painful, but God can even use disagreements and hard seasons to expand His work and to mature us, as He once used a sharp disagreement to form two teams where there had been one. He can use what feels like setback for good.
Your loneliness and your desire for marriage are also before Him. Singleness is not a curse and being without a spouse does not mean you are forgotten or less valued. Marriage, as Scripture presents it, is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and sexual intimacy and living together belong within that covenant. Whether He leads you to marriage or calls you to serve Him in singleness for a season, your worth and your belonging are secure in Christ. There is a bond within the body of Christ that is closer than natural family ties, and He places His people in a family of faith where love and fellowship can be found. Ask Him to deepen that fellowship around you while you wait on His timing, rather than measuring your life by lateness or by comparison with others.
Your present need for daily provision and a place to live is also seen by Him. He knows the strain of limited space and lack, and He cares about your practical needs.
Our ultimate hope for the body is the resurrection. Jesus affirmed that the dead will rise, and in that resurrection there will be no more sickness, deformity or decay. The questions we have now about how bodies are restored will be fully answered then, for God will make all things new. Until then, we bring every request to Him and trust His wisdom about when and how He answers. He may bring healing now, He may sustain you through ongoing weakness, and He will certainly bring complete healing in the resurrection.
So we pray for you not only for relief of each symptom you listed, but first for a deep assurance of salvation in Jesus, for peace that guards your heart and mind, for restful sleep, for comfort in loneliness, for freedom from fear, for wisdom for any medical care you need for your breathing and blood and other conditions, and for growing strength in the inner person through His Word. May you be built up in Christ until you are mature in Him, bearing fruit and being changed day by day into His likeness, knowing that you are fully seen, fully loved, and held by Him.
