By Hal Pickus · · 4 min read
A prayer for a sick friend (and what to say when you don't know what to say)
When someone you love gets sick — really sick — you suddenly feel how little you can do. You can bring food, send a text, sit in a waiting room. But you can't fix their body, and the casserole feels small next to the fear. Here's what's easy to forget: praying for them isn't the thing you do when there's nothing left to do. It's the most powerful thing you can do.
Pray boldly for healing
The Bible doesn't tell you to pray timidly about sickness. It tells you to call people together and pray with real expectation:
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
James 5:14–15
"The prayer of faith." God still heals — through medicine, through time, and sometimes in ways that have no other explanation. Ask boldly. You're not bothering him.
A prayer
Father, I'm bringing ______ to you. You are the Healer, and nothing in their body is beyond your reach. I'm asking you plainly: heal them. Guide the doctors, work through the treatment, and do what only you can do. Give them strength for today and peace in the waiting. I'm trusting you with someone I love. Amen.
When the sickness is serious
Some illnesses are long, and some are frightening. There's a verse for the bedside — God promises to be near in the worst of it:
The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
Psalm 41:3
Even on the hardest day, in the hospital bed, God is the one holding them up. Pray that they'd feel it.
The deepest healing is already secured
However the sickness goes, there's a healing that's already certain for anyone who trusts Jesus — and it puts the rest in perspective:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5
What to text them
Don't just say "praying for you." Tell them what you prayed. And it's okay to send them a verse — this one is a beautiful thing to pray over a sick friend:
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
3 John 1:2
If someone you love is sick right now, you don't have to carry the worry by yourself. Lift their name here and let a community pray for their healing alongside you.