Also by this author: Hope in an Anxious World: 6 Truths for When Things Feel Overwhelming, Mental Health and Your Church: A Handbook for Biblical Care (A Ministry Guide to Mental Illness, Anxiety, Depression, Trauma and Addiction)
Published by Good Book Company on April 1, 2024
Genres: Non-Fiction, Christian Life
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Help to pray for people dealing with grief, illness, emotional distress, mental-health issues or difficult circumstances.
It can sometimes be hard to know how best to help friends, family or fellow church members who are struggling through pain and suffering. But one guaranteed way to love them well is to commit to pray for them regularly. Whether someone you know is dealing with grief, illness, emotional distress, mental-health issues or difficult circumstances, this guide will help you to pray for them with compassion and purpose.
Each of the 21 prayer themes in this book takes a passage of Scripture and suggests five things to pray for your struggling friend-relevant for whatever their troubles may be. You can use this book in any number of ways: work through it as part of your daily quiet time or pick it up whenever you want to pray for your friend.
In this brief book, Helen Thorne shares themed lists of prayer prompts that people can use to pray for suffering loved ones. Each list focuses on a different theme, such as praying for your friend to be able to express their pain to others, or praying for them to trust in God’s faithfulness. The topics include a good blend of spiritual themes and practical issues, and the author connects each topic with a specific Scripture passage, relating all five prayer prompts to a Bible verse and briefly describing a spiritual truth. Each section also includes a few blank lines where readers can write down prayer points for that theme.
The prompts are broad and general enough that they will apply to people in a variety of different life stages, and will apply to different forms of suffering. The majority of the prompts assume that you are praying for loved ones who share your faith, but some of them are also geared towards loved ones with different beliefs, and people can adapt any of the prompts to fit with their needs. I appreciate how generally applicable this book is, and it can be a helpful prayer guide for individuals and groups.
5 Things to Pray for a Suffering Friend is simple but powerful, providing clear direction for how people can care for their friends’ needs, take their friends’ concerns before God, and pray about their friends’ holistic spiritual and emotional health, instead of just focusing on a desired outcome for a particular struggle. The author never makes false promises or guarantees particular results from praying in a particular way, but encourages readers to take hope in the truth that God hears our prayers and cares for us and our loved ones.