OF course He does. Several cases I could mention, when, in answer to prayer, I had relief from pain in illness, pleading those precious words at the end of the general epistle of James, “Is any among you suffering? let him pray.”
Only the other day, visiting a cottage in a small hamlet, I noticed a little girl crying bitterly, and was told she was suffering from ear-ache. On asking the father if he could not take her to the doctor (who lived in the village two miles away), he said he would have to get a “permit” from a farmer living at a distance of two miles (in an opposite direction. He added, he could ill afford the time for walking these distances, while the mother had a baby to nurse, and all the children were quite young.
I asked the parents if they would join with me in asking the Great Physician to cure their child, quoting to them the passage already mentioned and other sweet encouragements to prayer given by our dear Lord Himself.
They both nodded assent, and I hoped the prayer of faith was offered by all three.
Calling again and finding the man and his wife at home, as before, I asked him if he had gone for the permit, when he said he had not.
“Did you go straight to the doctor, then?” “No,” he replied, “there was no necessity for it.”
“How was that?”
“She lost the ear-ache after you left.”
I trust we all “sang praise with the heart to the Lord,” who had so graciously answered our prayer by granting complete relief to the little sufferer.
Messages of God’s Love 4/18/1915