Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16 (NLT)
About Healing Prayer for Animals
Why do we pray for animals? The same reasons we pray for humans. We lift them in prayer to honor the individual by recognizing his or her worth, to offer comfort in times of pain and despair, to heal and restore, to offer God’s love with a ministry of presence, and to bear witness to another’s suffering.
In so doing, we are loving our neighbors, for animals are indeed also our neighbors in this Creation. From the very beginning in the ideal of the Garden of Eden, to the stable into which God bore His son, warmed by their breath, and through to the vision of the coming times where the Peaceable Kingdom will reign, humans are expected to exercise a protective dominion, not domination, over animals. What one values and cares for, one protects. It is our sacred duty to emulate the nonviolence of Christ in showing mercy in carrying out the Great Commandment to love God with all that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves; and also the Great Commission to makes disciples of all the nations. If we do the first, the last takes care of itself. If we love what God loves, it pleases him and God clearly loves animals. He may love us more, but he still loves them plenty enough. And because God designed such a perfect system, the lovely thing about caring for animals is that when we do it well, a whole cascade of blessing happens. People benefit, the planet benefits, and animals benefit as well, because we are all connected. Prayer at its very core, then, is an expression of love to our Creator on behalf of his creatures, which God hears and answers in kind with a Father’s loving response.
There are right now in our midst people who have left the church, or who won't join, because of its stance on animals; people who feel marginalized and for whom animals are their only family; animals whom society has discarded, literally or figuratively; and animals who suffer needlessly, either from human neglect and indifference, or even those who are deeply loved and cared for but whose medical conditions challenge our current abilities to effectively treat them with all that we know. All these individuals, human and non-human, need our prayers and need the church to reach out to them in love and reconciliation. It is for each of them, a precious being known by name by God, that The Animal Healing Project was created.
Let me say that I’m no authority on prayer. I’m just a lay person who has seen its great power. Sure, I've taken classes and read books. And I’ve been the recipient of tremendous healing myself. God revealed himself to me through animals. For me, healing, animals and God are inextricably woven together.
I’ve seen prayer work on animals in emergency roadside situations and have spent the better part of ten months praying weekly for inner healing with a cow with slow but steady results. Praying for animals is effective—that I know for sure. Whether addressing areas of unmet need in current veterinary medical practice, or soothing the ravages of cruelty cases, a myriad of applications for healing in prayer for animals immediately spring to mind. I created The Animal Healing Project as a way to step out in faith and act even though I don’t have all the answers, and likely never will. I know there must be others out there who have seen animal healing miracles as well. I would like to know your stories, please write and share them with me.
Most churches are comprised of families and most families have animals. The foundation of those same churches is prayer and worship so it stands to reason that the building blocks of fundamental change are already in place. I hope that a shift in consciousness will occur that will be simple in theory and scope but profound in implication and possibility. And it’s really just that simple—animals matter and they need our prayers.
My hope is that TAHP creates a climate where animals have a place in our houses of worship, where people can expect to receive healing prayer for their companions as they do for themselves, that their faith communities honor their grief when they lose a non-human loved one, and that every church supper includes a vegan option other than a green salad.