A Prayer That Changes Things

A health concern

Is horrible to learn

In all kinds of different ways.

All we can do

Is manage our bodies true

Praying for peace all our days.

***

When we pray our circumstances don’t change, but our view of them does. Health concerns can bury us in anxiety, which leads to fatiguing depression. But when we pray, seeking peace, God gives us a new porthole through which to look.

There are so many things beyond our immediate control in life.

We cast a gaze in the mirror, acutely aware of the health problem plaguing us, no matter how imminent is the threat, and we quickly find ourselves forlorn in attitude; a further deepening descent into something dark if we remain there.

We decide this is no good, so we set out on a plan to rectify the situation. Or, we remain in the preponderance of denial – which is convenient now, but not much good as the signs and symptoms wear on.

Apart from doing what the health and medical professionals instruct us to do, all we can do is pray – for a peace that splits apart our experience of understanding, such that we cannot explain the abiding sense of tranquility that our hearts and minds enjoy.

We need to pray. We need to pray every day. We need to instill prayer in our way.

Our prayer might go something like this:

My Father in Heaven;

My Father in me and all around me via your Holy Spirit, I uphold you as the Lord of my life and the King over all I think, say and do. You alone are worthy. You alone know me. You alone can heal me. And you alone have the power to help me now.

Thank you that you can deliver me in ways that transcend my understanding.

I ask Lord, now, as I bow before you, with my mind and heart set upon you, surrendered before your throne of grace, that you would give me grace enough to trust you with my health and the power to do what is right for me and my body and mind. Help me change my ways so I live healthier and holier. And truly I ask for peace, Lord.

I ask these things in and through the wonderful name of Jesus, my Saviour,

AMEN.

***

Health concerns cause much anxiousness. Going to God each day in prayer, to seek his peace over our health matters, is the way to receive from him what we cannot give ourselves – to receive a peace that transcends our understanding. This is a prayer that changes things; not our circumstances, but our very selves.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.