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How Do You Pray for Someone Who Is Suffering from a Prolonged Illness?

The list is not exhaustive, but it is a good biblical start toward this kind of prayer.

1. Pray that God would extend his merciful hand and bring about complete healing in their body.

2. Pray that the doctors and nurses who are treating them would be instruments of God and filled with much wisdom.

3. Pray that they would not equate a lack of health with a lack of God’s love for them (Romans 8:31–39).

4. Pray that their uncertain circumstances would not diminish the reality of their most certain future (Romans 8:35).

5. Pray that their illness would cause further reliance on God and not less (2 Corinthians 1:8–9).

6. Pray that the brevity of their earthly bodies would not detract from the fullness of life within them (2 Corinthians 4:7–12).

7. Pray that their illness would become a platform of witness for the glory of God (2 Corinthians 4:13–15).

8. Pray that their visible circumstances would not take their eyes off of their invisible hope (2 Corinthians 4:16–5:5).

9. Pray that they would be encouraged to live their lives to please God, whether by life or by death (2 Corinthians 5:6–10).

10. Pray that God would grant them the patience for both treatment and recovery.

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