No. 41 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Bestowing One
In the Long Healing Prayer, Bahá'u'lláh calls upon God as The Bestowing One, the inexhaustible source from whom every gift, every mercy, and every healing grace descends.
I call on Thee O Concealed One, O Triumphant One, O Bestowing One! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer
Plain meaning · Bestowing
from “bestow”: 1. To lay up in store; to deposit for safe keeping; to stow; to place; to put. "He bestowed it in a pouch." Sir W. Scott. See that the women are bestowed in safety. Byron. 2. To use; to apply; to devote, as time or strength in some occupation. 3. To expend, as money. [Obs.] 4. To give or confer; to impart;
Definition from Webster's Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain). When these Writings were translated into English, the translator relied on Webster's New International Dictionary, 1934 edition, of the same Webster's tradition. source
What “The Bestowing One” means
The meaning above is the plain dictionary definition of the word. What follows reflects on it as a name of God, offered for your own contemplation, and not as an authoritative interpretation of the Bahá'í Writings, which rests with ‘Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi alone.
To speak of God as The Bestowing One is to acknowledge that nothing good in our lives ultimately originates with us. Generosity, in human terms, always runs up against limits, we run low, we grow tired, we have only so much to give. But when we turn this attribute toward God, those limits simply fall away. The Bestowing One gives not from a reserve that can be depleted but from a nature that is generosity itself. Every capacity we possess, every moment of clarity or courage or kindness we manage to express, points back to a source that keeps pouring forth.
The word 'bestow' carries a particular quality that sets it apart from ordinary giving. A bestowal is not a transaction or an exchange, it is a gift offered freely, from a position of abundance, without expectation of return. When Bahá'u'lláh invokes this name alongside names like The Concealed One and The Triumphant One, the juxtaposition is striking: the God who is hidden beyond all comprehension is also the God who gives most openly and most lavishly. Mystery and generosity are, in this vision, two faces of the same divine reality.
There is something quietly important about the placement of this name in the prayer. It arrives in a cluster with The Sufficing, The Healing, and The Abiding, names that together describe a God who is enough, who restores, and who endures. The Bestowing One belongs in that company because genuine healing, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, is never something we manufacture for ourselves. It comes to us. It is given. Recognizing that can shift something fundamental in how we approach our own fragility and need.
Calling on The Bestowing One for healing
When you are in a place of depletion, when illness has taken more than it seems to have left, or when grief or fear has hollowed something out inside you, calling upon The Bestowing One can be a way of consciously opening your hands. It is an act of honest acknowledgment: I do not have what I need right now, and I am turning toward the One who gives. This is not passivity. It takes real courage to admit need, and it takes a kind of spiritual clarity to direct that need toward its truest source. The prayer does not ask us to pretend we are fine. It asks us to call out from exactly where we are.
It is worth holding this name alongside the wisdom that healing involves both spiritual and material dimensions. Calling on The Bestowing One does not replace the care of a good physician, a trusted counselor, or the support of community, in fact, those things may themselves be understood as channels through which divine bounty reaches us. The outcome remains in God's hands and God's wisdom, which means we pray with trust rather than with a predetermined expectation of what recovery must look like or when it must arrive. What we can receive, always, is the grace of knowing we are not alone in our need.
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Living the Word
Applying The Bestowing One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Bestowing One being asked of you right now, and how will you practice it? Keep a short note each time you return, and watch your own path with this name take shape over time. It stays on this device.
In the Bahá'í Writings
“15.3O handmaid of God! The prayers which were revealed to ask for healing apply both to physical and spiritual healing. Recite them, then, to heal both the soul and the body. If healing is right for the patient, it will certainly be granted; but for some ailing persons, healing would only be the cause of other ills, and therefore wisdom doth not permit an affirmative answer to the prayer. 15.4O handmaid of God! The power of the Holy Spirit healeth both physical and spiritual ailments. Acquiring Divine Virtues”
Read in full at bahai.org →“God Is the Great Compassionate Physician Who Alone Gives True Healing October 19th All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy. If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us! There have been many men who have died at last of the very disease of which they have made a special study. Aristotle, for instance, who made a special study of the digestion, died of a gastric malady. Avicenna was a specialist of the heart, but he died of heart disease. God is the great compassionate Physician who alone has the power to give true healing. All creatures are dependent upon God, however great may seem their knowledge, power and independence.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“...we must not make distinctions between individual members of the human family. We must not consider any soul as barren or deprived. Our duty lies in educating souls so that the Sun of the bestowals of God shall become resplendent in them, and this is possible through the power of the oneness of humanity. The more love is expressed among mankind and the stronger the power of unity, the greater will be this reflection and revelation, for the greatest bestowal of God is love. Love is the source of all the bestowals of God. Until love takes possession of the heart, no other divine bounty can be revealed in it. (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912, p. 15) [103]”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Bestowing One
- Does calling God 'The Bestowing One' mean my healing will be granted if I pray sincerely enough?
- Sincerity in prayer is always meaningful, but the outcome of healing belongs to God's wisdom, not to the intensity of our asking. The Bahá'í understanding is that healing, physical and spiritual, is given when it is right for the person, and that divine wisdom sometimes sees further than our immediate desires. Praying with this name is an act of trust and openness, not a formula that guarantees a specific result. It is also always wise to seek the care of qualified medical professionals alongside spiritual practice.
- Why is The Bestowing One placed alongside The Concealed One in the same line of the prayer?
- This pairing invites a kind of contemplative pause. God is described as hidden, beyond full human comprehension, and in nearly the same breath as the One who gives most freely. The two names together suggest that divine generosity does not require us to fully understand God in order to receive from God. The gifts come even through the mystery, perhaps especially through it.
- Can this name be relevant to healing of the mind or spirit, not just the body?
- Very much so. The Long Healing Prayer is understood to address spiritual and physical healing together, not as separate concerns. The Bestowing One speaks to any kind of lack or need, including the inner poverty that can accompany depression, loss of meaning, broken relationships, or spiritual dryness. Whatever form restoration takes, its source is the same boundless giver.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer