No one likes to be sick. And few of us feel like praying when we’re stuck in bed, groggy from medicine and feeling awful. At such times, it can help to know someone is praying for you—and as hard as it may be, it also helps to pray for your own healing, using some of the following prayers from Biblical figures:
1) A King’s Prayer
King Hezekiah wasn’t just ill; he’d been told by a prophet of God that he would die! But the Bible says that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed. And his prayer of both words and tears was answered. Your own prayer, modeled after Hezekiah’s, might go something like this:
“Remember, Lord, how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in Your eyes. See my tears and hear my prayer for healing” (see 2 Kings 20:2-3).
2) A Prophet’s Prayer
The prophet Jeremiah had to deliver a message from God—a prophecy of affliction and destruction—to his own people. But it included the prophet’s prayer for healing, which is a helpful prayer in our own need:
“Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for You are the one I praise” (Jeremiah 17:14, NIV).
3) A Soldier’s Prayer
A military man came to Jesus one day, concerned for the life and health of one of his servants. The man told Jesus, “Lord, I do not deserve to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Matthew 8:8-9, NIV).
Jesus commended the man’s faith and healed the servant. His prayer, imported into our circumstances, can be a powerful petition:
“Lord, just say the word, and I will be healed” (see Matthew 8:8).
4) A Woman’s Prayer
A woman with a chronic illness pressed through the crowd that surrounded Jesus, telling herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed” (Matthew 9:21, NIV). She reached out to Him, and He stopped to ask who had touched Him. When she confessed to her act, He said, “Take heart, daughter…your faith has healed you” (Matthew 9:22, NIV).
So take heart from her prayer—and her faith—and pray:
“Lord, I reach out to You in faith. Heal me, like the woman who touched Your garment” (see Matthew 9:20-22).
