Press play to pray with Pastor Jomo
0:53 min prayer
A prayer for a friend or family member facing sickness or disease. Pastor Jomo humbly asks God's mercy, healing, and patience for their recovery.
When someone you love is sick, you carry it with them. This is a prayer for a friend or loved one going through a season of sickness or disease, a way to bring your worry to God and place the person you care about under His care. You can ask God boldly to heal them, and at the same time trust Him with the timing and the outcome. Pray it at a bedside, from a waiting room, or far away when there's nothing else you can do, and let it move your fear into the hands of the One who holds them.
A Word Before You Pray
Sickness has a way of making you feel useless. You'd give anything to fix it, and you can't. So you pray, and sometimes you wonder if praying is enough. Hold onto a few things before you do.
Asking God to heal is right and good. Scripture tells us plainly to pray for the sick. So ask boldly, ask specifically, ask for a full recovery. But guard your heart against the lie that if the healing doesn't come, you or they didn't have enough faith. That isn't how God works. Faithful, deeply prayed-for people still get sick, and some don't recover, and it is never a verdict on their faith or yours.
Notice that this prayer asks for healing "in Your good time" and asks for patience under affliction. That's wise. It holds two things at once, real hope that God can heal, and real trust in Him even when the road is long. Pray it that way. Bring the bold request and the open hands together, and remember that even when a cure tarries, God has not left the room.
The Prayer
Dear God, we place our worries in Your hands. We place the one we love, who is sick, under Your care, and we humbly ask that You restore them to health. We pray that Your healing hand would drive out all sickness and disease from their body.
Lord, visit them. Relieve them from their pain and their distress. Look upon them with the eyes of Your mercy, and give them patience under their affliction.
In Your good time, Lord, we pray that You restore them to good health. And until that day, would You hold them close, ease their fear, and let them know You are near. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
How to Use This Prayer
Pray it as often as the worry rises, and personalize it, say the person's name, name the diagnosis, name the specific thing you're afraid of. If you can, pray it with them or over them. There's something steadying about being prayed for out loud, even when the words are simple.
Pair the praying with the practical, because trusting God and following good medical care are not opposites. Paul told Timothy to take something for his stomach, not just to pray about it. So keep the doctor's appointments, follow the treatment, ask the hard questions. And tend to the people doing the caregiving, exhaustion is real, and they need prayer and rest too. Pair this with James 5:14-16 or Psalm 34:18, and when you run out of words, sit quietly and trust that God hears the prayer you can't finish.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I pray for someone who is sick?
Pray boldly for their healing, and pray for more than that too. Ask God for relief from pain, for peace and strength in the waiting, for wise doctors and good care, and for them to feel His presence in the hardest hours. Pray for the family carrying the worry as well, and trust God with how He answers.
Does praying for healing guarantee God will heal them?
No, and it is important to be honest about that. God can heal and still does, so we should ask boldly. But Scripture never promises He always heals the body in this life. Faithful, prayed-for people still stay sick, and even Paul asked three times for his thorn to be removed. Unanswered prayer is not a sign of weak faith.
Why doesn't God heal everyone who prays?
We do not fully know, and anyone claiming a tidy answer is overreaching. Sickness is not punishment, and it is not proof of weak faith. Sometimes God heals the body, sometimes He gives grace to endure, and sometimes the full healing waits for eternity. It is okay to wrestle and even to lament. He stays near through all of it.
What does "by His stripes we are healed" mean?
It comes from Isaiah 53:5, and Peter quotes it in 1 Peter 2:24 to describe being healed from sin. So its first meaning is spiritual, the wound of sin healed at the cross. Complete physical healing is real but ultimately belongs to the resurrection. Using the verse to claim a guaranteed cure now piles guilt onto people already suffering.
