My husband, Neil, and I have a very long prayer list lately. We have a great number of friends, family, and acquaintances seeking prayer for a variety of ailments and many of those prayers are for life due to terminal diagnoses.
Some of those who we pray for are not in God’s family but even so, they would like us to ask God to heal them. What a quandary that must be for a sick person. If they, indeed, believe that God is in charge of the entire universe, including them, why not pray to the Father of all themselves?
Possibly they are just hedging bets with the medical team on one side saying death is imminent and then hoping that the people praying will have more effect than the doctor to extend their life. And, possibly it will. God hears our prayers and answers as He deems best.
Neil and I pray for life for all of them. We pray that they will find new life in God’s son, Jesus, even if their time on Earth is numbered by days (as are all of ours). I think about the joy that those who do not yet believe would have in their final days if they knew for certain their final destiny would be with the Savior they recently trusted with their life.
God is powerful beyond medical truths and most likely everyone has heard a wonderful story of God answering prayer for recovery from a sickness to partial or total healing to a return of good health.
I think of the wonderful Bible story of Hezekiah who, when told he was to die, sought God’s face.
“And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.’ Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: ‘I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you… for the sake of My servant David.’”
God did not heal this king because he was worthy of healing. He healed him because of God’s love and promises to King David. God is in charge of each of us, the universe, our kings and leaders and everything in between.
None of us are worthy to have our life extended but we certainly can ask our Creator to do that when we are ill. Of course, we can also pray the prayer that never fails – ‘Your will be done.’ Yet, do we trust God enough to accept His will in our lives?
Jesus will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death for which we are to fear no evil because God is with us. Trust. That is the hardest part for many of us when looking toward God for answers.
Some of us believe we can make a deal with God to save our lives. I think of Louis Zamperini whose plane went down in the Pacific in World War II. He and a crewmate were adrift in a lifeboat for 47 days. He made that deal for life with God but then he broke it. His story was told in the book and movie, “Unbroken.”
Mr. Zamperini survived that nightmare only to become a prisoner of war. At war’s end, he came home a hero but eventually succumbed to alcoholism and personal defeat in his marriage. When he attended a week of Billy Graham tent meetings, he turned over his entire life, horrible reoccurring nightmares, alcoholism, marriage, and children to God. He sought healing in God’s grace and truth through Jesus’ beautiful gift of His death and resurrection – and he received it.
Louis Zamperini was a changed man from that time forward. The forgiveness and love he received from God flowed over to his family and even to the Japanese captors who had tortured him. He had new life!
In light of stories like this one, Neil and I pray for the soul as much as the body when we are asked to pray. No one can really be whole without intimately knowing the God that created us and the God that gave His life for us to bring us back to Him.
We pray, ‘Your will be done.’
ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.
