Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5:13-15 ESV)

As many of you know, I have been dealing with what has felt like a non-stop stream of health issues for the last ten years and I find that very few hours go by when I do not feel incredibly weak and weary. So I was very surprised the other day to discover that the Greek uses two quite different words to translate the word ‘sick’ in these verses from James. The first, in verse 14, asthenei simply means, conventionally enough, to be weak or sick. The second, however, kamnonta, stems from kamnó, which means to ‘toil or tire,’ figuratively, to be so spent that one is on the point of collapse. This interpretation came as a great blessing to me given where I am at this moment in time!

James goes on to give the wonderful reassurance that if people have sinned, they will be forgiven. Praise God! The word he uses for sin is hamartano, and it means, as you probably know, ‘to miss the mark’ (as in archery). More than that, it has the sense of being in a state of unfitness or incompleteness. It’s an indirect suggestion that there can sometimes be a link between sin and sickness. Paul even links sin to death when he rebukes the Corinthians for their behaviour as they share the Lord’s supper together:

Anyone who eats and drinks without recognising the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. (1 Cor. 11:29-30)

But when Jesus gave the gift of sight to a man blind from birth, He explained that this man’s particular circumstances were, like Lazarus’s death, designed for the display of the Lord’s glory. (Jn. 9:3; 11:4) And in the verses we are looking at, James certainly does not suggest that every sickness is the result of sin. Rather, he writes that ‘if’ someone has sinned and is seeking prayer, they will be forgiven. ‘Therefore,’ he says, ‘confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.’

Praise God for powerful and effective prayer! It is a joy and a privilege to be on the receiving end of it!

God’s sustaining grace

We can be reasonably sure then that, if we are in the habit of confessing our sins to others, then it is very likely that any weakness and weariness we are feeling is not the fruit of a particular sin but of some other cause. In my own case, the decline in my health has not come as a surprise, for, back in the autumn of 2015, the Lord warned me clearly that I was about to become a great deal weaker, and He told me that I would have ‘to be as good at laying things down as I had hitherto been at picking them up.’ To say the least, that was a powerful, if daunting, word! A few years later, He added a reassuring postscript to say that as my own physical grip became so much weaker, I was not for one moment to make the mistake of assuming that that meant that His own was any the less firm!

Over the years, many dear friends have prayed for me, and yet the trajectory of the weakness has continued relentlessly in the same direction. What I really can celebrate, however, is the way in which the Lord has, as it were, redirected the thrust of their prayers so that I am consistently strengthened to get up really early every morning to pray and seek His face, and then to beaver away on all manner of research and projects. He continues to give me greater and deeper insight into the things He has me study and pray into, as well as the energy and strength to write them up, and to release a strong creative flow in me. If I have an event or meeting I am taking part in, I often experience an impartation of strength that enables me to do all sorts of things that would normally be beyond my strength to do.

I am reminded of Amy Carmichael: a fall left her confined to her room and in constant pain for twenty years. Many people prayed, but she was not healed. Instead, she wrote book after book, which ministered to people right around the world, and do still to this day. Or what about my great uncle Frank, who pursued his extensive evangelistic and pastoral ministry across the vast diocese of Zanzibar and Tanganyika despite suffering every day for years from a low-grade fever? Refusing to slow down, he continued in harness for years, bringing much glory to the Lord through the harvest of his ministry. Thank you for godly examples of perseverance and persistence, Lord! And thank You for the gift of prayer. You have made it possible for the prayer of a righteous person to be truly powerful and effective, as James goes on to say. (James 5:16) It really is amazing, and we bless You for it!

These are not the type of full-blown healings we love to hear about, but I bear witness to the truth of James’ statement: ‘The prayer of faith will save [sózó: to deliver, protect, heal, preserve, save, do well, be or make whole] the one who is sick [kamnó: toiling, tiring, fainting, sickening, wearied.] God’s grace truly remains sufficient for us in our weakness, and His power made perfect through it. Therefore, like Paul, I must do my best to boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.’ (2 Cor. 12:9)

A weight and burden of glory

Taking an eternal perspective, as ever, for our true bearings and motivation, Paul explains elsewhere that his own physical weakness belonged only to this Earth and is therefore merely temporary. As he puts it,

. . . though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16-18 NASB)

How we need to visit the spiritual equivalent of SpecSavers to equip ourselves with such a lens through which to view suffering! Placing his affliction (thlipis in Greek, a pressing or crushing force) on the scales, he finds that it is but a feather in comparison to the eternal weight (baros) of glory that lies ahead. More than that, he dares to declare that our afflictions are actually producing a great weight of everlasting glory. Given that that is anything but an automatic equation at the ‘feelings level,’ I wonder how many of us dare to view our own sufferings in such a light?

Paul uses the same word baros in Galatians 6:2, where he reminds us to ‘carry one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfil the law of Christ.’ This is just what James is recommending when he instructs us to ask the elders of the church to pray for us when we are sick or deeply weary. The burdens some carry can be crushingly heavy, and it is so good to have the help of others in carrying them, as well as to be one of those who does as much for others. You and I are equipped to pray for one another to powerful effect – even if that effect is not the one we anticipated. God is not a slot machine – but He is a faithful, prayer-answering God!

A few verses further on in the Galatians passage, Paul says something that would appear at first sight to be if not a contradiction of his earlier statement then certainly something of a paradox: he tells us that each one of us should carry our own ‘load.’ The word here, phortion, has to do with carrying out a task or service, just like a ship carries freight. This is another way of saying that it would be wrong to do the work the Lord has assigned to someone else – even if they are shirking it. But when there is an overload pressing down hard on our brother or sister, particularly where physical illness or spiritual oppression is bearing down hard on them, then these are burdens that we can and should share in the weight of. Perhaps we may not be able to remove them entirely, for that depends not least on their willingness to part with them as well as on the Lord’s sovereign choosing, but lifting them to the point where they are free and able to choose and respond freely for themselves.

It would be a great mistake and very ungrateful, to assume that just because the Lord chooses not to answer what seems to us to be our most pressing need, that He has not heard and used in exquisite detail our prayer requests, whether they be made in the regular rhythm of prayers from friends, or the super-charged special thrusts of ‘elder prayer.’

With such things in mind, I was truly grateful when a couple of spiritual elders prayed for me the other day with authority and sensitivity. They didn’t claim a physical healing God wasn’t promising, or confuse me with their own hopeful contributions, and they didn’t leave me feeling vulnerable and wary of asking for prayer again. Instead, they held me in the Lord’s presence, trusted in Him to direct and outwork their prayers, and embraced me in the warmth and respect of their own love for me. I was and am deeply blessed, even though it still seems as though every day brings another struggle.

For all those of us who are finding illness and circumstances in any way threatening to clog or stifle our creative flow, may the Lord give us the courage and the desire to keep reaching out, and be prompt in asking for prayer. And may we all also remain alert so as to come alongside those who are in need of special seasons of prayer.

Further reading and resources

After writing this article, I had a nudge to see what Rick Renner, the author of the popular devotional Sparkling Gems from the Greek, might have to say on the subject. I discovered two helpful articles. The first is entitled, ‘Is there any sick among you.’  The second is from his new publication, What James 5 Really Says About the Sick in the Original Words: an in-depth look at the Greek words that are used in the books of James and Jude (Jesus’ half-brothers).

These verses from James are addressed to people who are suffering – and Rick Renner unpacks that word ‘suffering’ in great detail here in footnote 898:

The words “an extremely difficult time that is producing a lot of heartache and grief” are an interpretation of κακοπαθέω (kakopatheo), which is related to the word κακοπάθεια (kakopatheia), a compound of κακός (kakos), a word that describes something evil, foul, or vile, and the word πάθος (pathos), a word that describes suffering so deep that it touches the mind and emotions. As a compound, it conveys the multiple ideas of affliction, distress, trouble, and suffering, but also perserverance.

Furthermore, when these words are compounded to form κακοπάθεια (kakopatheia), it is often also interpreted ‘to put up with something foul by means of emotional or mental hardness.’ It is the development of emotional or mental toughness.

When these words are compounded, it means to suffer evil, and denotes something hurtful or damaging. James’ readers endured various levels of suffering on account of their faith, and to anyone facing such pain, James exhorted, “Let him pray,” (See Renner’s footnote 899 concerning that. It illustrates my point above about what others can pray for us, and what we should pray for ourselves.)

Clearly, each one of us has great need of perseverance and the strength to hold on. (Hebrews 10:36 and James 1:4) This lovely song that Megan sings helps us find them.

At a more general level, you might want to read, or reread, the chapter called The Art of Burden Bearing in Intimacy and Eternity.

And if what I have been sharing here resonates for you in the circumstances you find yourself in at this time, you might well particularly appreciate this post from our series, Offering up the Fragments, and Part 3.

Finally, I would love to point you to this extended compendium of verses about the Lord’s sustaining power is sure to be a blessing too. You will enjoy the music too!

Do please consider passing this article and these resources on to people who you feel might benefit from them!