Prayer

Prayer
Photo by Tom Barrett / Unsplash

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I stopped to visit one of the aged widowers in our community. I find it very interesting to listen to seniors tell stories from long ago even if most of the story has been told many times. Their days are immensely brightened when someone listens to them reminiscing, and tidbits of wisdom can be gathered that might otherwise need to be learned in the school of hard knocks.

This brother is a very sociable person and a good story teller so it doesn’t take much to get a conversation going. After catching up on current events, we shared a few tears together for loved ones who have passed on to a new life. Then he told a story that has helped me to seriously reflect on my view of praying for sick people.

When he was a young lad, he contracted a serious case of pneumonia. His parents tried every remedy they knew and exhausted all the doctor’s options as well. His condition continued to worsen, so the doctor was summoned again. When the doctor arrived, the boy was unresponsive but could hear everything his parents and the doctor were saying as if from outside his body. The doctor told his parents that all had been done that could be done; if his condition didn’t improve by morning, they should start making funeral arrangements. Through the night his parents cried out to God in anguish, begging God to please heal their son because they could not bear to give him up just yet. He could hear what his parents were praying, but he drifted away into a land of pure bliss. He met aunts and uncles and other people who he had heard his parents talk about but had never met before. He said he experienced other things as well that he has never told anyone except his wife. Everything was so wonderful until God came to him and said it was now time to go back to his parents. He argued vehemently that he did not want to go back, but God said he had to because his parents were begging for him. Finally, after many tears, he agreed to go back to his parents if he could see his favorite character from the Bible first. After seeing that person, he was taken back and placed into his ailing body. His parents saw him writhing and crying and assumed he was in pain from the pneumonia when in reality he was crying because he didn’t want to be on this earth anymore. His vision ended when his condition began to improve.

I listened to this story in stunned silence. Here was a widowed octogenarian amputee who had seen glory many decades ago and now needed to be at peace with the pain God still saw fit for him to endure. How would it feel to sit on a recliner, watching the creeping hands of a clock, praying for the days to be shortened, knowing you were prayed out of heaven years ago?

It is easy to identify with the parents’ feelings. I pray every day that each of our children may be healthy and faithful unto a blessed end. When I try to imagine how I would feel if God said that today he wants to answer my prayer and make a blessed end for one of them, I wonder what my response would be.

If to die is gain, why do we try so hard to stay alive? When we hear someone was taken to the local hospital in an ambulance and is now being life-flighted to another one, usually the first reaction is to start a prayer chain. Are we praying them away from heaven?

When a doctor breaks the news of heart disease or cancer, do we follow the example of Hezekiah? Do we weep and beg for more time on this sin-cursed earth? When God says, “Set thine house in order for thou shalt surely die,” do we quickly sign onto a transplant list or look for the newest treatment to gain another fifteen years? Why is it so hard to say, “Thy will be done,” when we proclaim a desire to be with Jesus forever?

We are all appalled by the scourge of abortion. We wag our heads and click our tongues at those who promote the notion that there is dignity in assisted suicide. “God is the giver and sustainer of life,” we are quick to say. What is our response if God chooses to not bless us with children? What treatments and procedures are okay to help God bless ourselves? If it is wrong to hasten our entrance into eternity, at what point is it equally wrong to delay it?

These are all questions I have wrestled with many times. Occasionally I’ve brought up some of these questions to others and have found it interesting how few people question the moral implications of life-extending medical procedures. Sometimes it seems as if we exhaust all options, regardless of the cost, before we can surrender to God’s sovereign hand.

Praying for the ill is certainly supported in scripture. One of my favorite passages is James 5:13-18. Verse 15 is precious to anyone who has ever had a serious illness and recovered from it, “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up…”

I have been very intrigued with King David’s response to the illness of his first son with Bathsheba. II Samuel 12:15-25 records the story of how David fasted and prayed for the child that God said would die because of the sin he had committed. After the child died, his servants were astounded that he got up, washed himself, changed his clothes, and worshipped the Lord. David’s answer for his actions was, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, ‘Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

Jesus’ prayer on Mount Olive is what I want to keep in mind if I am ever faced with a debilitating crisis. “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). He could have called more than twelve legions of angels to save himself from the cross but submitted to it instead.

Harold Otto lives in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania with his wife Karen and five children. He is a partner in a company that provides the wood construction industry with engineered floor, wall, roof, and other components. Training his children and working fill most of his days, while beekeeping, and the study of science and ancient history that confirm scripture keep the spice in life. He can be contacted at haroldotto@yahoo.com.