No. 56 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Creating One
When we call on God as The Creating One, we are reaching toward the very Origin of life itself.
I call on Thee O Beneficent One, O Withholding One, O Creating 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 · Creating
from “create”: Created; composed; begotte. [Obs.] Hearts create of duty and zeal. Shak. 1. To bring into being; to form out of nothing; to cause to exist. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Gen. i. 1. 2. To effect by the agency, and under the laws, of causation; to be the occasion of; to cause; to produce; to form or fashion; to renew. Your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers. Shak. Create in me a clean heart. Ps. li. 10. 3. To invest with a new form, office, or character; to constitute; to appoint; to make; as, to create one a peer. "I create you companions to our person." Shak.
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 Creating 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.
The name The Creating One points to something foundational: God is not merely a distant designer who set the universe in motion and stepped away. This name speaks of an active, ongoing creative power, the same power that first called existence into being continues, at every moment, to sustain it. To say that God is The Creating One is to acknowledge that nothing we see, feel, or are has any ground of being apart from that ceaseless creative act.
There is something quietly astonishing about sitting with this name. Creation, in the deepest sense, is not a past event. It is happening now, in the renewal of cells, in the first breath of morning, in the slow healing of a wound. The Creating One is present wherever something comes into being or is restored to wholeness. This name invites us to see the world not as a finished, closed system but as something perpetually arising from a living Source.
In the Bahá'í understanding, every name of God reflects a distinct quality of the Divine that also has the potential to awaken a corresponding virtue within us. The Creating One reminds us that creativity, renewal, and the capacity to begin again are not merely human traits, they are reflections of something far deeper, flowing from the One who brings all things into being. To meditate on this name is to open ourselves to the possibility of genuine newness, even in circumstances that feel fixed or beyond repair.
Calling on The Creating One for healing
When illness touches us, whether in the body, the mind, or the interior life of the spirit, it can feel as though something essential has been diminished or lost. Calling on God as The Creating One in those moments is an act of profound trust. It is a way of saying: the same One who first brought me into being has not withdrawn that creative power. Restoration, renewal, even forms of wholeness I cannot yet imagine, these remain within the scope of what this name holds. We do not claim to know exactly how or when healing will come, and we hold that question humbly in God's wisdom. What we can do is turn toward the Source with an open heart.
It is worth remembering that seeking medical care and turning to God in prayer are not competing paths, they belong together. Competent physicians, therapists, and caregivers are part of the fabric of how healing moves through the world; consulting them is both wise and encouraged. Alongside that care, prayer, and particularly a prayer as carefully wrought as this one, can orient the whole person toward the One in whose hands all outcomes rest. To invoke The Creating One is not to bypass the practical but to place everything, including the practical, within a larger frame of trust.
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Living the Word
Applying The Creating One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Creating 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
“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 →“‘Say, all is from God’ is a sound and sufficient argument, and ‘if God toucheth thee with a hurt there is no dispeller thereof save Him’ is a healing medicine.””
Read in full at bahai.org →“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 →Questions about The Creating One
- Why does the Long Healing Prayer invoke God by so many different names?
- Each name of God in the prayer illuminates a different facet of the Divine reality, much the way different angles of light reveal different qualities of the same gem. By moving through name after name, the prayer draws the heart into an increasingly full encounter with the One being addressed. The Creating One is one moment in that larger turning, each name deepening the relationship between the one who prays and the One who hears.
- Does calling God 'The Creating One' mean healing is guaranteed if I pray sincerely?
- No, and the Bahá'í Writings themselves are candid about this: healing, when it is right for a person, will be granted, but wisdom does not always permit the answer we hope for. Sincerity in prayer is deeply meaningful, but it does not override divine wisdom about what is truly beneficial for each soul. We are encouraged to pray wholeheartedly and also to seek competent medical care, holding the outcome in trust rather than expectation.
- Can this prayer be recited for someone else who is ill?
- The Long Healing Prayer is widely recited both for oneself and on behalf of others who are suffering. Praying for another person is a natural expression of love and compassion, and the Bahá'í community has a long tradition of gathering in prayer for those who are ill. Offering this prayer for someone else does not require any special authority, only a sincere heart.
- What does it mean in practice to meditate on God as The Creating One?
- In practice it might mean pausing, as you recite this name, to consider that the same Source from which all life springs has not withdrawn from your situation. It could mean noticing small signs of renewal around or within you, the body's quiet work of repair, a returning sense of hope, as possible reflections of that ongoing creative power. It is less a technique than a gentle reorientation of attention toward the One in whom all possibility resides.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer