Prayer Lesson

So. Tested positive for covid Monday. I apologize if this does not make a lot of sense. This is a Hunter Thompson-esque view from the inside.

This is not as bad as my first go-round with covid. But it is worse than the flu. I was whistling a jaunty tune yesterday, thinking I was past the worst of it. Nope.

Many years ago I read somewhere, maybe Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Dying," that sickness is a time of temptation. I won't lie, that really offended my modern sensibilities. I said, "no, when we are sick we are just miserable."

But... experience has taught me otherwise. I don't know where a new impulse started, probably again from Jeremy Taylor's book, but I started to take illness as a time to pray. At the least, you have to slow down. And instead of self-pitying thoughts and self-indulgent thoughts, I try to turn my thoughts to God, to prayer.

Please do not roll your eyes and say, "how super spiritual of you, Pastor." It's hardly that. It has been a realization that any time we are distressed and afflicted, we should turn to God, who is our only help anyway. It is a mystery: if when we are down we are closest to God, He does not love us if He keeps us from it.

So when I cough, I pray for some people I know who are really going though it.

And I also feel the Lord has led me to consider if what I ask for in prayer is what I really need? This gives me great hope, because perhaps He will change my affections in some things, and I will desire what He desires in some important issues.