These past two weeks I have had a headache and trouble sleeping almost everyday. I will admit I am not a very patient or enduring man when it comes to pain and distraction like that.
In these circumstances I have been praying two prayers:
1. That God would heal my body and emotional health to sleep soundly and not have pain and headaches.
2. That I would grow in faith and joy in the Lord despite the circumstances. Philippians 4:
But these prayers for my own health have tested my faith in Jesus healing like in Matthew 4
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. 25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis,[g] Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
I know that I believe in word and as long as it is all theoretical. I even pray for others to be healed. I have asked for others to pray for me. My friend Stu laid hands on me. In these prayers I pray and others pray I know I have tremendous doubt, but I believe God has been changing my heart and growing my faith.
So as the man prayed before Jesus when his son is possessed so I pray:
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
Lord I believe you can heal me and others! Help my unbelief.
But I also believe regardless of whether you heal me in this specific circumstance.
One cool way that God has answered these prayers is that kind of randomly my wise girlfriend Ivanna pointed out that I slouch a lot! and that maybe I am causing my own pain and headaches. That was humbling, but I realized how true that is. I have tried to have better posture and it has almost been painful to sit up straight and hold myself with good posture because it is so foreign to my body. We'll see how it goes. But I have been feeling better in the last few days after praying and focusing on better posture.
Lord thank you for working through others! Especially Ivanna and her sincere and wise spirit!
Lord help me to pray boldly with faith for others that your healing power might come into their lives.
Amen
Hopefully my words were more gentle than that haha :) I'm glad that you are feeling better after praying and working on your posture, I don't doubt that both of those are having a positive impact on how you feel. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have found this "Help my unbelief" prayer is one that I often find myself praying; when praying for physical healing, or God's provision, or anything for that matter. Way to continue to press into bold prayers Daniel! Thanks for increasing our faith in you, Jesus!
Inspiring!, you two are both very wise for your years. Dan: keep on listening to the women around you who admire & love you & pray with you will be a success! ;-)
ReplyDeleteLovingly and prayerfully, your Aunt P.