• Prayer is a way to get in touch with God. But you don't offer prayers to God the way you give a Christmas list to Santa. Praying for physical healing is about recognizing our own frailty and weakness, giving us a time to look to the goodness of God for hope. If you pray for healing, do so with faith, but not with assumptions of fulfillment.
  
  

Prayer for the Body

• The best prayers a Christian can utter are those that have come from the Scriptures themselves. One of the best resources for prayers in the Old and New Testament is in the Psalms. If you have physical problems, repeat Psalm 6:2: "Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony."
  
  This prayer to God completely relies on him for relief. As paralleled in the verse, God's mercy and healing are intertwined. This means, when you pray that God heals your body, ask him for mercy. Without his mercy, your healing will not come to pass.
  
  

Prayer for the Mind

• Another excellent Psalm to pray is Psalm 41. In this chapter, the author writes: "The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness. I said, 'O Lord, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.'"
  
  This prayer will also settle the mind of the person praying. When the psalmist says. "I have sinned against you," he admits his situation of mortality to the infinite God of creation. When we pray the same, our minds will attain peace. Praying for our minds in addition to our bodies will remind us of God's greatness, thus increasing our faith in him over our own humanity.
  
  

Healing for Others

• The scripture that best establishes the theology of praying for others' healing is a famous one that Jesus himself uttered: "When you pray, say: " 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.' "
  
  When we pray for someone to be healed, we do so because we want our loved ones to be happy and healthy. But, more importantly, it is in suffering that we turn our eyes to God. If we were all healthy at all times, we would have no reason to pray for healing.
  
  Some denominations believe that prayers for physical healing must include a mention of "God's will." An acknowledgment of God's will shows that we understand it is ultimately up to God whether our prayers for physical healing will come to pass.