March 28, 2022

III John 2 (NIV)

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

Prayer is never a waste of time.*

Years ago, I was a member of a weekly Bible study class that spent a lot of time at the beginning of each meeting sharing prayer requests. As you might guess, a lot of cancer and surgery patients were among those added to the list. I believe in the power of prayer but one week, four out of five people on the prayer list had died. I was only half-joking when said that if I got sick, I would rather they didn't add me to their list.

Throughout the New Testament, we are admonished to pray for one another - though not always are we told specifically what to pray for. Someone pointed out to me one time that praying for sick people to get well could be tantamount to "praying the saints out of heaven," but John’s greeting here sets a precedent for prayers regarding another's health.

While many invalids have been effective servants of the Lord, there are a lot of jobs to be done for the sake of the Kingdom that can’t be performed by someone whose health is delicate, leaving the ailing one feeling less valuable. But I believe that when John adds the request “that all may go well with you,” he is referring to our outlook on our circumstances more than the circumstances themselves. And we certainly can’t go wrong if, like John, we pray for all to be well with the souls, not just the health, of those we love. So, if I could go back in time to that Bible study group, I would tell them, “Go ahead. Put me on your list.”

A Christian gets the opportunity to show how life with God brings greater joy and peace than life without him, regardless of the circumstances.*