"My soul faints with longing for your salvation,
                but I have put my hope in your word.

My eyes fail, looking for your promise;
                I say, "When will you comfort me?"

Though I am like a wineskin in the smoke,
                I do not forget your decrees.

How long must your servant wait?
                When will you punish my persecutors?” Psalm 119:81-84 NIV

I believe I am like most of people in that I do not handle words like this well. There is no answer to how long a suffering friend must wait.  The Psalmist is groaning under the oppression of evil men, but the same words apply to those of us who are gravely ill.  We can believe, as Dr. Bryan Chapell of Covenant Theological Seminary has said, that the Lord will heal everyone who is sick, but that does not mean the Lord will heal our present bodies soon, if at all.  Death, that conquered enemy, can only claim part of us temporarily.  If we are sick, we will be healed in our bodies or out of them. Both are real healing.

But does it help to say that to a friend who has spoken like the Psalmist above?  He cannot see God’s faithful promise coming.  He feels like a used wineskin hanging up in the smoke, wrinkled, dried out, coated with soot.  We want him to buck up, don’t we? He says he hopes in God’s Word; why can’t he smile about it? 

I suppose this is one reason the Lord does not make his Body out of identical parts, because some of us will have something to say, some of us will pray quietly, and some of us will make meals and wash clothes.  We have not forgotten His Words, and we act on them differently.

Charles Spurgeon writes: “The worst circumstances cannot destroy the true believer's hold upon his God. Grace is a living power which survives that which would suffocate all other forms of existence. Fire cannot consume it, and smoke cannot smother it. A man may be reduced to skin and bone, and all his comfort may be dried out of him, and yet he may hold fast his integrity and glorify his God. It is, however, no marvel that in such a case the eyes which are tormented with the smoke cry out for the Lord's delivering hand, and the heart heated and faint longs for the divine salvation.”

Let’s pray for comfort of those on our prayer list that we and they will not forget God’s words, and that He will give them grace to endure their struggles.