Although God permits people to become sick, He does not want them to cease praying. In fact, He wants the sick to pray more eagerly. Yes, as the sickness grows more severe, prayer is to become more fervent. We see an example of this in our Lord Jesus Christ, where Luke records: “and being in agony He prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:44).
“Morning Prayer of a Sick Person: Exhortation.” Starck’s Book of Prayer. CPH 2009.
Nothing in this world happens by chance. God determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name (Psalm 147:4). The Son of God is sustaining all things by His powerful word (Hebrews 1:3), and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17).
When people become sick, it is because God has permitted it. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Suffering exists for our chastisement and as a means of calling us to repentance. Yet, the same verse from Romans concludes with the comforting promise that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Two chapters later in the letter to the Romans we are told “that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28) and that “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things.” (Rom 8:32). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…No, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39).
We trust, that as God has provided for our eternal life in Christ, He also will defend us against all danger and guard and protect us from all evil out of His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy each day. Our times are in His hands (Psalm 31:15), and even as two sparrows are sold for a penny and not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of our heavenly Father, so too, even the very hairs of are head are numbered (Matthew 10:29-30).
I’m going to paraphrase what Johann Starck wrote in his prayer book. Jesus is with us, even in the midst of sickness–he is here to comfort us and give us strength, and also to teach and guide us, to call us to repentance and show us the way to walk forward. Perhaps in normal times we were not diligent in attending church or fervent in prayer–now that has become something we can’t take for granted. Perhaps we made an idol out of sports, either as spectators or in our children’s lives–now they have been taken from us. Perhaps we thought that our wealth would keep us from having to worry about ultimate things–now the market tumbles and small businesses and farmers are left wondering what the coming months will bring. Perhaps we have not read the Scriptures and stored up a supply of comforting passages while times were good–and now all we have is the supply of toilet paper that we managed grab before the store ran out.
God sometimes lets these things happen to remind us of our faults and reveal our idols. He then turns our eyes back to Him. To turn our eyes back to things that really matter, and to set our hearts on things above. God has given us time home in smaller groups that we may pray more fervently. And for all who have been lovers of God and His Word, now God will show us by means of these events how to put into practice what we have heard from God about patience and submitting to His Fatherly will. These are times for our faith to bear fruit.
Each day that we are able wake up and pray “This is the day the LORD has made,” is a gracious gifts that we can rejoice and be glad in. Times like these remind us it is a gift that might not have come, and yet here it is. We pray the Lord to help make the proper use of it.