Trusting God Through Health Concerns

Reflect on God’s Word

There is little that is as unsettling as a hospital. Unless you’re in the labor and maternity ward welcoming new life, a hospital can be a very scary place. The stinging smell of hand sanitizer, the squeaky plastic chair bed, the constant beep, beep, beep of pulse-ox monitors up and down the hallway. When you or a loved one has extended stays in a hospital room, it all becomes so familiar that you can almost stop registering the details. It becomes just white noise.

While we may know intellectually that the hospital is a place of repair and healing, it can also be frightening and unsettling.

Spending any length of time at the hospital is draining—more than anything, it is the waiting that can pull out the obsessive in us. We madly scour old college textbooks, online medical journals, and Google for information that might predict the future like a crystal ball.

But nothing can tell us what happens next.

So we sit there holding our loved one’s hand. We pour ourselves out until every last drop of us is gone, and then worry starts to seep in, filling every crevice of our tired, empty body.

But as worry fills us up, it leaves us dry and thirsty.

So, go before your Father God. Drop by drop, spill your worry at his feet.

He cares, so he listens. And gracefully, mercifully, he fills us up and over with peace.

It is peace that seems to be the opposite of what you feel in such a place—the sort of peace that strengthens your heart as you look to tomorrow and shields your mind against anxious, fearful thoughts.

Again and again, every day, go to God. Tell him your worries and ask for his peace. And this you can know about your God: He is faithful.

The lie worry tells you is this: God doesn’t care.

But here’s the truth as it is written in Psalm 118:1, 5–6 (CSB):

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his faithful love endures forever. . . .

I called to the LORD in distress;

the LORD answered me

and put me in a spacious place.

The LORD is for me; I will not be afraid.

He is good, he hears our cries, he is for us. We need not be afraid.

Do you feel the pain and relief and dullness of this place acutely? Maybe you know what it is to hand your screaming baby over to doctors with hope and fear tangled together in your heart. You know what it is to hear “yes, but” and “no, unless.”

Maybe you know what it means to want your loved one healed so badly that your insides pulse with a constant, throbbing pain.

Jesus encountered a man named Jairus one day. He was a synagogue leader and had a young daughter who was very sick, even dying. Mark 5:23 tells us Jairus “pleaded earnestly with him, ‘My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.’”

And so Jesus went with him, stopping along the way to heal a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years. But after that pause, people from Jairus’s household came and told him his daughter had died, that he shouldn’t bother Jesus anymore. Can you imagine how Jairus felt at that moment? He had come to Jesus because he knew that Jesus could heal his daughter. And then the bottom dropped out of his stomach as he heard this news.

But Jesus went anyway, knowing what he would do, knowing that this miracle of bringing Jairus’s daughter back to life would bring God more glory.

But you don’t know the outcome of your prayers, do you? And you feel afraid. But still, like Jairus, you get on your knees and beg Jesus. There is no dignity in your begging; you crouch next to the hospital bed and, like Jairus, plead for healing.

But even as you ask the Great Physician for a miracle, remember this: whether the answer is yes or no, he is good.

God’s character does not change. If he was good yesterday in health, he is good today in sickness. He can be nothing but goodness, grace, and light. We also know that he is able. Cling to that knowledge as you pray.

Psalm 54:4 (CSB) says, “God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my life.” So we turn to Jesus because he knows the depth of our longing and will answer us. There is not one breath that we take that he does not give us. The fact is, our days are numbered.

Psalm 139:16 tells us, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Release Your Fear

Imagine yourself in the throne room of the Lord. Kneel before him or bow your head in submission to him and know that he is both sovereign King and compassionate Father. As you picture yourself in the presence of God, know that he sees you and he loves you.

Now give God your anxiety. Unburden your heart and tell him your worries. As you think of your situation right now, admit to God that you are afraid he might say no. Now ask him for your wildest hope. As Jairus did, tell him your heart and ask him for a miracle.

Hear Jesus’ words: “Don’t be afraid; just believe” (Mark 5:36). Trust him to do all that is for your good and his glory.

Here’s the hard part—the exercise in trust. Repeat what Jesus prayed in the Lord’s Prayer and again in the garden of Gethsemane: “Your will be done.”

Father God, this seems uncontrollable. But you are the one who knows tomorrow and knows next year. Take these worries from me and replace them with peace. Take my fear and give me trust. Let me know from the depths of my soul that you are for me and give me the strength to face whatever comes. I am brokenhearted as I come before you. I have nothing to give, but I want to trust you because I know you are trustworthy. You are Glory as you weave your sovereign plan; You are Grace as you listen to my plea. You are Power, and you can heal. So I ask that you would. But if you do not, Lord, help my heart. Allow me to trust you, to lean into you, as you are Peace. Your will be done. In Jesus’ name, amen.

JOURNAL PROMPT: Write out the worries and anxieties you’re giving to God. What is he saying in return?