Praying for others

Working with God

Let’s think now about what happens when we pray for someone who is ill.  What our prayers do is to call down God’s healing and strengthening power upon that person.  Remember, God likes to work with us human beings in bringing about good and he expects us to be active in working with him to help other people.  One of the ways we do this is by praying for them.  Even if they do not get better, we know that through our prayers they will be soothed and brought nearer to God.  If we are not sure exactly what to pray for, we should just bring them before God in our prayers and lift them up to him.  The same is true of when we pray for someone who is sad or anxious.  God will hear our prayers and through them the person will receive the support that he or she needs.  So in our prayers we are not trying to persuade God to do something he would not otherwise have done – we are sharing in his loving work and allowing him to use us to bring about his will for others.  As the saintly Julian of Norwich wrote, “…He (God) beholdeth us in love and would make us partners of His good deed, and therefore He stirreth us to pray for that which it pleaseth him to do”. (2)

Prayer and action

Often we shall pray for people whom we do not know – perhaps people injured in a rail crash – and we can be sure that God hears our prayers and will help them.  But sometimes we shall pray for people we do know who are ill, or sad or worried.  In these cases it may be that our prayers for them will lead us to take some further action, such as visiting them in hospital or sending a Get Well card, or simply saying a kind word to someone who is sad.  In all of these ways we are working with God, that his will may be done.