If in times of illness we're used to relying on medical or herbal prescriptions or on various traditional or nontraditional therapies, we may think of prayer as, at best, an adjunct to these approaches. The thought of someone relying exclusively on prayer to address illness may seem in itself like a bad case of "the do-nothings" that requires a cure!
Yet prayer rooted in an understanding of God has, independent of other aids, been consistently proved effective in healing disease. Often an individual's introduction to such prayer comes when it heals a condition that medical treatments have failed to cure. When that's the case, or when someone has enjoyed a lifetime of healing through prayer, to pray in times of sickness feels absolutely natural. It is logically and practically doing something—doing something very powerful! To pray is to take one's medicine in a very real sense.
In sickness and in health, prayer is conscious communion with God, the all-knowing Mind. It empowers one to know and do God's will. It is a vital step in all-important redemption from sin. And as is made clear by the Bible, particularly in the example of Christ Jesus, the power of God, understood and acknowledged in prayer, frees from physical debility as well as from disobedience and sin. The Saviour's understanding of man's spiritual perfection as God's offspring cured palsy, fevers, blindness, and leprosy, as well as turning around sinful lives.
