Ready to Heal

Lord, your discipline is good, for it leads to life and health.  You restore my health and allow me to live!  Yes, this anguish was good for me, for you have rescued me from death and forgiven all my sins. . . . Only the living can praise you as I do today. Each generation tells of your faithfulness to the next.  Think of it -- the Lord is ready to heal me! I will sing his praises with instruments every day of my life in the Temple of the Lord.  Isaiah 38: 16-17, 19-20

As I read these verses this morning, thoughts of friends who've recently battled significant illnesses washed over me.  God is so good, and this scripture reminds me of his goodness.

Too often, in our humanness, we grow complacent in our relationship with God. We begin to trust more in ourselves and this world than we do in our God.

And then something terrible happens.  A disease, an injury, a death of a loved one, a broken marriage: something that shows us we cannot live this life alone, that we need God's presence in our lives every day in a real and constant way.

When turmoil invades our lives, will we be able say, "Lord, your discipline is good ... this anguish was good for me?"

I rejoice in sharing victory with these friends who've overcome adversity, with those who can say, "for you have rescued me from death," because "only the living can praise you as I do today."

I am claiming this scriptural promise: "the Lord is ready to heal me!" And I am singing his praises, telling others of his faithfulness.

In a Nutshell
Our God is ready to heal us, ready to restore us.  Praise him for all he has done and all he will do.

Almighty Father, our Great Physician, You know my needs before I speak them.  You know my failings and shortcomings.  Forgive me for letting worldliness get in the way of my relationship with You.  You are the God of mercy and forgiveness, the God of healing, the God of every good thing.  I thank you, Father, for Your acts of healing that I've witnessed in my friends; I thank you for restoring their health, for mending their brokenness.  For those who are facing new adversities, I ask that You restore them, also, because Your Word tells me You are ready to heal.  Father, restore our health and let us live, so that we might praise You and share Your faithfulness with others.  In Your holy and precious name I pray, Amen.