Praying for the Critically Ill

Eric Walsh

Loma Linda Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

The Power of Prayer

When I was asked, I thought this was an interesting topic, the praying for the critically ill and looking at the power and importance of prayer as practitioners, as individuals in the hospital, or in health care at all.

And 1 of the Bible stories that jumped out at me was found in Luke chapter 18 and verse 35.

It says, And it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging.

And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant.

And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passes by.

And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace.

But he cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him.

And when he was come near, he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto you?

And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight.

And Jesus said unto him, receive your sight.

And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God.

And all the people, and all the people when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

I like this story because it really speaks to what we're trying to deal with today.

It deals with, what do you do with the person who is critically ill?

Blindness and sickness in that time was viewed as punishment for sin.

Somebody had to have sinned for him to be blind either his parents or he sinned and so there was a Judgment on an individual like this and that and that's why when he begins to pray to Jesus folk run out to stop him To rebuke him.

He's not worthy of bringing a petition before the Messiah And so they try to stop him.

But when you look at the story, he does a few things to teach us about praying in critical situations.

Number 2, when Jesus tells him to come, he follows the command of Jesus.

We don't have time for this, because we're kind of dealing with it in a medical sense.

But prayer is not a one-way conversation, not a one-way communication.

True prayer goes back and forth between God and between the person praying.

So he does that, he gets up, he comes to Jesus, And I like it because Jesus asks him a simple question.

His answer is, I just want to be able to see, Lord.

Ah, your faith has made you whole, meaning that when you come to Christ, you come to him believing, believing that he can do what he says he can do, and he will answer prayer.

And the final part of the prayer is that he begins, the scripture says, he leaves and follows glorifying God.

And when everyone saw it, they praised God.

So 1, we don't just pray and ask for things, we glorify God at when God answers our prayers.

And God will sometimes allow sickness, difficulty, trials, problems, Because when God shows up in the situation, praises are lifted up to Him when people see the deliverance that God offers.

So when people ask me as a physician, you know, why is it that God allowed my loved 1 to get this disease?

Or why is it that they're in this situation?

I will often have to give a short synopsis of the great controversy that sin has entered the world and that there are consequences and that God cannot control what people do.

And so there are many, many consequences, but God will allow tough things to come into your life because if you leverage those tough things properly with God you can build a closer relationship with God despite the difficulty and sometimes because of the difficulty that has come into your life.

It invites God into the darkest situations.

When life itself is on the line, when it seems as if you will not survive, when all hope seems to be gone, prayer brings God into a tumultuous situation and can allow God to transform the bleakest situation into a powerful 1.

I was working as the medical director of the Urgent Care, and 1 of our doctors, Dr.

Mark Sutton, who's like a brother to me now, was 1 of the doctors there.

But while working with us there, we began to have Bible study with each other and with other of the staff and faculty at the East Campus Urgent Care.

He re-accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, became recommitted to God's remnant church, and gave his life back to Christ.

In fact, after a while he was an elder in his church down in Orange County.

1 night I was speaking at the Drayson Center for a student gathering of vespers, and he called frantically while I was still speaking.

So when I picked up my phone afterwards, I could hear him sobbing and crying in a panic on the phone that 1 of his young sons had drowned in the jacuzzi in the backyard of their house.

Anybody who knows about drownings knows that a warm water drowning is worse than a cold water drowning.

And the ambulance had come and taken him away.

And when he got to the hospital there in Orange County, they had pronounced that his child, at best, would be brain damaged for the rest of his life.

I called him back, and he gave me the update.

I had everyone in the room that night at the Drayson Center get on their knees and collectively break into groups, and we began to pray for his son.

I left there, because we both worked at the urgent care, and drove to the East Campus Hospital and got the nurses and the staff.

We pulled into the back hallway, held hands, and we began to pray for his son.

I left there because we both worked at the urgent care and drove to the East Campus Hospital and got the nurses and the staff and we pulled into the back hallway, held hands, and we began to pray for his son.

And then I got in my car, took my cousin, and drove all the way to the hospital in Orange County on a late on a Friday night and got there as he and his wife had his child laying, watching his child laying on the bed, limp and seemingly almost lifeless.

His wife was not an Adventist, not a believer.

You know, he had come back into the church before she had, and we sat and we prayed, and I agonized with God over that child, and I said, Lord, this is your child.

I pray that tonight this hospital and these individuals will see there's power in calling on the name of Jesus.

By the time I left, no change in the condition of my child, by the time I hit the freeway and began to drive back to the Loma Linda area, I got a call on my cell phone.

He said, you're not going to believe this, but he has awoken.

He's awake, and the doctors here cannot believe it, because he's conversating with them and asking for food, and there is no sign of brain damage.

You see, I believe in prayer, not because it's some esoteric idea in the sky, but because I have learned that like physical exercise, if you exercise your faith through prayer, prayer is the resistance training machine that will grow the muscles of faith in your life.

So the question is asked, what is prayer?

Merriam-Webster Online says here, 1A, it's an address such as a petition to God or a God in word or thought.

Another definition says a set order of words used in praying an earnest request or wish, the act or practice of praying to God or a God.

Collins Dictionary Online says, prayer is the activity of speaking to God.

A prayer is the words a person says when they speak to God.

You can refer to a strong hope that you have as your prayer.

But Ellen White gives a very powerful definition of prayer, 1 that I like to use when I think about praying.

She says in a book called Stand Apart, page 26, prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.

Not that it is necessary in order to make known to God what we are, but in order to enable us to receive him.

Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to him.

The problem with not praying for patients is that in fact we do them a spiritual and even medical disservice.

Because not giving them the connection to divine authority that many of us know exists is to shortchange the patient from the full cadre of remedies available.

To not pray when a patient is in trouble, disparaged, really says, I'm not going to give everything I can to the healing in this situation.

I was in my office where I work now in Bakersfield.

And 1 of the clinics I work, 1 of the nurses is pregnant.

And she had gotten a call while I was in the office, and it's the wound care clinic, so I go back and forth and take care of wounds, and when I walked back in, before I had to check, I didn't check my phone, because they often text me when they need me, And I just walked back over to see if they needed me.

She was in the corner crying on the phone.

So 1 of the other nurses said, well, we're going to need to pray.

She said, well, her obstetrician had called and the obstetrician gave her some unnerving news that was unclear, that maybe something had been found on 1 of the tests she had just done, and they wanted her to see a specialist.

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