Ok - so I am confused. I have been to a few meetings recently where we have been praying for healing for people - sometimes it is physical stuff, sometimes emotional or other stuff. But I have been really confused as to knowing what to pray for. I mean, as Christians we believe that God can heal us and wants to heal us, but then as Christians we don’t often see God doing that straight away and so we often need to persevere with it and trust God. Apparently just praying ‘God if you want to heal me, then please do’ shows a lack of faith - so what an earth am I supposed to pray?

So maybe I am overdramatising this slightly - but you get my point yeah? I think that as Christs body we really need to be able to pray effectively into the situations we see around us. Whether that be stuff that we are involved in or stuff that we are simply just ’standing in the gap’ for. I believe that praying effectively means that we don’t say stuff like “If you want to God, do it - but if you don’t, well then don’t” - as that doesn’t really say much at all. But there are times when we pray for things and they don’t happen - yet months later we look back and agree that it was better that God did not answer our prayers directly and that it was better that we waited.

So when we see someone who is sick - what should we pray? If we pray for direct healing and it happens then maybe we will get complacent as the Isralites did when they wandered the desert and simply took for granted that bread fell out of the sky everyday. If we pray for direct healing and it doesn’t happen we could get discouraged and never pray for it again - as we don’t want to feel silly. The thing is that this didn’t seem to happen to Jesus - and when it happened to His disciples, he rebuked their lack of faith.

I guess the conclusion I am coming too is that often we will pray and ask for things that God has other ideas about. Sometimes, we can actually change God’s mind, just as Moses did. Sometimes I think God really does know best - and it is worth waiting for His plan to come to fulfilment. I wonder if it is like when a child asks something from their parents - they wouldn’t be good parents if they let their children have everything they asked for. I think that God is the same. So as for what we should ask for when we pray? Well I guess we should aim at the top - pray for healing and always keep listening to what God is saying about the situation we are praying in to.