For me, it’s all of it. Asking for healing doesn’t cancel appreciation for medical skill, and praying for doctors doesn’t mean giving up hope for direct comfort or intervention. It feels less like choosing one channel and more like acknowledging that care can arrive through many paths.
Sometimes the most immediate answer to prayer is peace or resilience rather than physical change, and that doesn’t necessarily mean the prayer “failed.” It can mean the response came in a different form than expected.
I’ve found that widening the scope of prayer, healing, wisdom, steady hands, emotional strength, keeps me from treating prayer like a single request and instead turns it into an ongoing conversation grounded in trust rather than control.
If someone is in the hospital I ask God to give the doctors wisdom and work through their hands. If someone is unwell with an ongoing condition, I ask that God would make His presence known to them and to have mercy on their pain. So yes, I ask for all things and I always ask for healing.
But to be honest, I question my faith when it comes to healing. I know God can heal. No doubt there, but will He? Too many times He hasn’t healed and I believe the most important thing in their illness is knowing His presence is with them and that internal peace. I don’t believe God has caused the illness although at times He does. In those times there’s some greater purpose of His that He wants to bring about. If He hasn’t caused it, He’s allowed it and I say that because He’s sovereign.
It’s difficult to watch those you love struggle in illness and to offer countless prayers on their behalf to no avail. I can only think there must be a reason behind it - a greater purpose. It can’t be a willy nilly luck of the draw.