Caring for Others

The first persons in space went all alone, one at a time, in capsules just large enough for one person. Never before had a human being been so far from other persons. Did this mean that such a space traveler was one of the loneliest persons who ever lived? No, indeed!

Why? Because others let him know that they cared. There were literally millions following his progress, interested in where he was and what he was doing, mentioning him in prayer, wishing him well.

Though we live our own lives, encased in our private “capsules,” so to speak, we need the supportive, personal care of others. Care is as essential to human life as food and drink. There are no more despairing words than these: “Nobody seems to care.”

Three times the risen Christ asked Simon Peter, “Do you love me. . . ?” And each time Peter answered, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

“Tend my sheep,” was the Lord’s response (John 21:15-17, NRSV).

Who and how?

To be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, means to care for others. But how? Care is not general goodwill toward humanity. It must be specific. Jesus’ own example shows his attention to individuals: He lifts a child up to eye level. He selects a particular person in a crowd for a word, a touch, or a shared meal.

When I ask, “ Who needs caring?” the obvious answer is everyone. But when I ask, “Who needs me to care today?” certain persons come to mind.

          If not, I need to start with prayer. Praying may be the beginning of caring. A small but surprising list of persons appears in my thoughts. Some are lonely, aged, weak, or in trouble. Some are successful, important, young, and strong.

As my prayers reach out to them, I think about what each may need. The answers vary: a letter, a phone call, a smile, a bowl of hot soup, money, healing, an introduction to another person.

Of course, I can’t do everything. But that doesn’t mean I should do nothing. I can’t care for everybody. But that doesn’t stop me from caring for somebody.

I can’t keep track of everyone I know, but I can respond to those in special need. I might assume that a widely known and respected person would not want or need or appreciate my care. Not so. Once a popular bishop had to cancel a scheduled event because of a blizzard. The only other available date was on a holiday. “But we wouldn’t want to bother you then,” said the parties involved.

“Please don’t say that,” he answered. “Nobody invites a bishop on a holiday. Everyone thinks we are with somebody else. “No one is too important to appreciate care, or to know sadness when others forget.

Excuses, excuses

What, then, stops me from being the caring person my Lord wants me to be? Excuses take many forms:

Someone else can do it better. Yes, there is always someone who can do something better than I, but there is no one who will speak my words or reach out my hand, or say my prayer.

Trained persons are paid to care. But that’s the very reason my untrained, unpaid, unexpected efforts may be important. Someone may need the pleasant surprise of discovering that I took some time for him or her when I wasn’t required to do so.

Their need is too remote for my own experience. But must I wait until I have had a broken leg, or divorce, or heart attack to minister to those in similar trouble at this moment? No!

Their need is too close to my experience. Perhaps others will think I’m seeking warmed-over sympathy for myself. I shouldn’t parade my past every time someone else suffers a pain that is familiar to me.

To reveal or retell my own experiences may be appropriate at times. At other times it may not be. Whether or not, the need to care still remains.

I never know what to say. There are no magic words, there is no prepared script, to help a caring person sound wise. But wisdom isn’t what most people need. The caring touch or glance or ear of a person who chooses to “be there” in an authentic way is the clue that Christ has sent that person.

I don’t want to be in the way. Just as there is a time to be someplace, there is a time to move on.

Sometimes an exit itself can be a form of caring. Sometimes my departing shadow will speak most clearly to the one in need. “He came.” “She cared.”

We are never left all alone to care for another.

God cares. God’s concern for the other person’s well-being was there long before we became interested. God’s care is stronger, wiser, and more enduring than ours can ever be. But people often understand and experience God’s care most deeply when it is transmitted through caring human beings.

The loving God cares for us all. This same God calls us and empowers us to care for others.

Adapted from a leaflet written by Donn Downall for

Discipleship Resources.

Caring for Others

Praying for the sick

Some ways of praying for the sick are more
helpful than others. To give a brief nod to God
with the words, "Now I pray for all who are ill" is
obviously not as effective as intensive praying for a
particular sick person. Let's think about what kind
of prayer works, and why.

What we are doing when we pray

When we pray for a person who is ill, we are not
calling God's attention to the individual. We are not
informing God about the situation. We are not asking
God to leave other duties to take care of this
person's need. We are in no way telling God what
to do. We are using our spirits as channels for God's
Spirit in reaching and healing the sick one.
Often, when we are sick, we close off our usual
openness to God. It is hard to think of anything but
the pain or discomfort. A sick person may cry out to
God occasionally, but will often not be able to maintain
his/her usual spiritual relationship with God. The
added spiritual power of others' prayers is helpful.
Some of us have a close, warm, loving relationship
with God. Others have a more tenuous or
irregular relationship. But in praying for the sick,
God can use whatever relationship we have.
God can use whatever spiritual resources we
have available, whatever understandings, whatever
power.

What good does it do?

If you cut your leg and the cut is full of dirt and
grease, is God's healing power operating? Yes-
100%! Your body will try to rid itself of all that
mess and get on with the healing.
Now, if someone cleans out that cut and
stitches the skin together, will God's healing power
increase? No, it will still be working 100%. However,
the conditions under which healing can take
place have been vastly improved.
Likewise, prayer does not influence God to do
what God otherwise might not do; but it does add
the element of spiritual healing to the situation,
vastly improving the conditions under which healing
can take place.
Negative praying doesn't help much: "Dear God,
we pray for our sister here. We are aware of all her
pain and discomfort. We know how lonely she feels
and how unhappy she is. Please heal her. Amen."
This sort of prayer doesn't actually do harm-
God surely has some way of dealing with negative
prayers-but it doesn't do much good. As you pray
for the sick, remember that God is already focusing
immense healing power. Thank and praise God!

The sources of sickness

A malady in one part of our being may produce
symptoms in another. A headache, for example,
may be the result of a brain tumor or allergy
(physical causes), financial worries, or anger toward
a parent (mental causes), or unresolved guilt or a
sense of the absence of God (spiritual causes).
Each aspect of our being makes certain demands:
Our bodies need proper nutrition, adequate rest,
and exercise; our emotions need loving, accepting
relationships; our spirits need a sense of God's
power, love, and presence, and the ability to act out
of divine will. Anything we do that is contrary to the
natural demands of our body, mind, or spirit causes
imbalance and often a symptom or two.
Some illnesses come through chance contact
with a disease. Some are caused by our own acts
or attitudes or those of others. But illness is never
caused by the perfect will of God. "Do you know
that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit
dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16, NRSV). We are whole
beingsæbody, mind, and spirit-and must be treated
wholly in order for healing to take place and
health to return.

How to Pray
for the Sick

The following suggestions will help you as you seek
to pray more effectively for those who are sick:
1. Prepare yourself by setting aside some uninterrupted
time-a minimum of half an hour-for
the purpose of praying for the sick.
2. During this time, try to concentrate as much as
possible on the task of prayer
3. Begin by setting yourself in a proper relationship
to God. Think of God's greatness . . . love . . .
presence . . . and especially God's caring concern
for those for whom you pray. Set your mind on
adoration!
4. Concentrating on one person at a time, reflect on
God's healing power even now functioning in the
patient's body, mind, and spirit. Thank and praise
God for this gift, this natural movement toward
health, and the divine love which prompts it.
5. Recognize the gap between God's expectations
for you and your actual performance in life.
Confess your individual share in the sin with
which the world is afflicted. Admit that it is in
spite of your own unworthiness that you dare
offer prayer. Accept God's forgiveness.
6. Pray directly and individually for the sick persons.
Visualize them receiving God's healing into their
being with no barriers at all. Imagine them being
carried lovingly and tenderly by Jesus himself.
Envision them being filled with the Holy Spirit
of God.

Try to empty out your own spirit to fill theirs.

Work at this, knowing that God will continually
refill yours. Try to communicate love, power, and
healing to them.
Pray for the doctors, nurses, and technicians;
the pastors, relatives, friends; and everyone else
who is participating in any way in the healing
process. Thank God for their care, knowledge,
and skill, and pray that they too may be open
to the Spirit's guidance.
Receive God's being into your own being,
then channel this being to the patients. Conversely,
pull out of them all that is negative, unspiritual,
unhealthy, or that keeps them from absolute
wholeness. Accept all this into your own being,
then give it to God.Pray that they may be increasingly responsive
to God's healing power, that they may increasingly
be co-operative with that power. Visualize
them receiving God's healing into their being
with no barriers at all.
7. Feel free to pray for your own needs and wants.
Ask God for a larger vision, a more profound
experience, a more intimate spiritual relationship.
8. Re-surrender, rededicate whatever portion of your
being has already been consecrated to God, and
try to offer even a bit more.
9. Complete your prayer by agreeing to act upon
whatever direction comes to you from God.
Submit your will and conscience to the Holy
Spirit's guidance.

Results of our prayer

Sometimes as you pray for the sick, you may have
a profound sense of participation in the healing
process. At other times you may wonder if you are
"getting through" at all. Either way, give thanks for
God's healing power for, and caring acceptance of,
the patients and yourself.
Sometimes it is obvious that healing is taking
place. If so, rejoice and praise God. Sometimes,
in spite of your ardent prayer, the patient merely
stays the same or even grows worse. Then you can
redouble your own efforts, asking more people to
pray with you or allowing more time for prayer.
You may wonder what's going wrong. It may be
that the disease has not yet run its course, or that a
change in medical regimen is in order, or that our
society has not placed a high enough priority on
medical research in this area, or that you are not
praying as well as is possible for you. The Spirit may
suggest to you new actions to take. If so, take them.
But always remember that God's will for the patient
is wholeness, adequacy, and health. That is the direction
God wants to move, if only we will cooperate
sufficiently.
God does not refuse to act because of some
"mistake" in your prayer. God knows you totally
and accepts and loves you and your prayers. There
is no technically "correct" way to pray for the sick.
God is already acting to provide healing. Nevertheless,
whatever spiritual power you can add is a
definite plus. The more you know how to channel
God's power to the patient, the more effective you
can be.

Death is a part of life

Sometimes the physical body is so diseased, injured,
or old that it is unable to sustain life. Sometimes the
only way God can provide wholeness is to bring us
through the experience we call death.
Death may be seen as the tragic consequence of
human disorder, or, under uncertain conditions, as a
better alternative to life. It may be viewed as a
happy end to a life well lived, or as a rite of passage
to a different order of existence. If for many reasons
death is the preferable alternative, praying for continued
life is, of course, inappropriate. What is to be
prayed for is health, wholeness, and adequacyænot
merely the avoidance of death.

A partnership with God

It is never appropriate (though often attempted) to
tell God what to do. God is not a cosmic bellboy,
but the almighty and all-loving ruler of the universe.
Our task is to discover ways of cooperating with the
divine will, humbly doing and being whatever God
wishes us to do and be. God loves us, cares for us,
wants the best for us. Praise God!

THE SCRIPTURES SPEAK

Jesus
"Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their
synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness
among the people" (Matt. 4:23, NRSV).
The Twelve
"Then Jesus called the Twelve together and gave
them power and authority over all demons and to
cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the
kingdom of God and to heal. . . . They departed
and went through the villages, bringing the good
news and curing diseases everywhere" (Luke 9:1-2,
6, NRSV).
"And by faith in his name, his name itself has made
this man strong, whom you see and know; and the
faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect
health in the presence of all of you" (Peter, in Acts
3:16, NRSV).
Paul
"(Paul) said in a loud voice, 'Stand upright on your
feet.' And the man sprang up and began to walk"
(Acts 14:10, NRSV).
The Church
" 'Are any among you sick? They should call for the
elders of the church and have them pray over them,
anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.
The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord
will raise them up; and anyone who has committed
sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to
one another, and pray for one another, so that you
may be healed" (James 5:14-16, NRSV).

Adapted from a leaflet written by Everett Taylor for
Discipleship Resources.