Let Us Pray
Oct 03, 2023
This week was a hard one for the family. A family member who has had many health challenges over the last couple of years was admitted to the hospital after a surgery because he had developed MRSA.
I knew MRSA was serious, but no one I knew well had gone through the infection, so I had to google it to know more about it. It's a kind of staph infection, and requires heavy duty antibiotics to treat it. In some people, it never really goes away, and can re-appear sometime down the line.
For my family member, it's extremely discouraging. And hospitals, even on your best day, are no place you want to spend any time. He justs wants to go home, but he can't until the infection is under control, responding to the antibiotics. In his weakened state, it could be a while.
James, the brother of Jesus, challenged the Jewish believers in his letter to pray for one another. "Is any among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up." James goes on to say, "the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:14-16 NIV)
I don't always feel my prayers are effective. I lay condemnation on myself—I'm not righteous enough, I think, for my prayers to be effective. But that is not how God sees it.
James anticipated that we might think such thoughts. He continues in verse 17-18, "Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." Other translations mention Elijah's frailties, his imperfection... just like us. He was a man who needed a savior. Just like us, he was not righteous in himself. It was the righteousness of God in him that produced such power in his prayer life.
I'm praying for my family member and trusting God to answer. If Elijah's prayers could stop the rain, my prayers can impact a loved one who is sick. Yours can, too.
Let us never fail to pray.
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