No. 86 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
my Faith
When Bahá'u'lláh addresses God as 'my Faith,' He reveals something astonishing: that faith itself is not merely something we possess, but a living presence that belongs, at its root, to God.
I call on Thee O Thou my Soul, O Thou my Beloved, O Thou my Faith! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer
What “my Faith” means
What follows reflects on this 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 word 'faith' usually points toward us, toward our inner conviction, our trust, our willingness to believe in what we cannot fully see. So it can be genuinely surprising, even disorienting in the best way, to find it used here as a name for God. What does it mean to call God 'my Faith'? One way to sit with this is to consider where faith ultimately comes from. If every capacity we have, sight, reason, love, traces back to its source in the Divine, then surely faith does too. In this reading, when we speak of our faith, we are already speaking of something that God has kindled and sustains within us. God is not just the object of faith; God is, in a deep sense, its very origin and substance.
This name also appears in a cluster of breathtaking intimacy in the prayer. Bahá'u'lláh calls on God as 'my Soul,' 'my Beloved,' and 'my Faith' in the same breath, three names that move from the innermost seat of life, to the heart's deepest attachment, to the foundation of spiritual certainty. Together they suggest that God is not distant or abstract, but woven into the most personal dimensions of human existence. To name God 'my Faith' is to say: You are the reason I can trust at all. You are what makes hope possible. You are the ground I stand on when all other ground gives way.
There is also a quietly universal resonance here. One of the recurring themes in Bahá'u'lláh's writings is that a common faith, a shared recognition of our unity and our relationship to the Divine, is among the most powerful healing forces available to humanity. When an individual calls God 'my Faith,' they are not making an isolated, private claim. They are touching something that, if it spreads and is shared, can bind communities and even civilizations together. This small, intimate name carries extraordinary weight.
Calling on my Faith for healing
When we are unwell, whether in body, mind, or spirit, one of the first casualties is often faith itself. Pain erodes certainty. Prolonged illness can make the universe feel indifferent or even hostile. Grief can leave us with nothing to hold. In those moments, calling on God as 'my Faith' may be less about asserting that we have faith than about returning to the One who holds it in trust for us. The prayer does not require us to come already full of conviction. It invites us to come honestly, and to let the act of calling be itself the beginning of trust. You do not have to generate faith on your own; you are calling on the One who is its source.
It is worth holding gently the fact that this name appears alongside 'the Sufficing,' 'the Healing,' and 'the Abiding', names that speak to God's completeness, restorative power, and permanence. These are not incidental neighbors. They suggest that the faith we call upon is not fragile or dependent on our own fluctuating inner states; it is anchored in a reality that endures. When healing seems uncertain or slow, the name 'my Faith' can be a quiet reminder that trust does not depend on outcomes we can see. Outcomes remain in God's hands, and wise medical care remains a genuine gift to be sought and gratefully used. But underneath all of that, the prayer points to something that cannot be taken by illness: the bond between the soul and the One it calls its own.
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Living the Word
Applying my Faith in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is my Faith 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
“21.1That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error. 22.1Beware, O believers in the Unity of God, lest ye be tempted to make any distinction between any of the Manifestations of His Cause, or to discriminate against the signs that have accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation. This indeed is the true meaning of Divine Unity, if ye be of them that apprehend and believe this truth. Be ye assured, moreover, that the works and acts of each and every one of these Manifestations of God, nay whatever pertaineth unto them, and whatsoever they may manifest in the future, are all ordained by God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose.”
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 →“‘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 →Questions about my Faith
- Why would Bahá'u'lláh address God as 'my Faith' rather than addressing faith as something He himself has?
- This invocation turns the usual relationship inside out in a thought-provoking way. Rather than faith being a quality Bahá'u'lláh claims for Himself, God is named as the very reality that faith points to and flows from. It suggests that authentic faith is not self-generated but is, at its deepest level, a gift and a presence that originates in the Divine, something God is for us, not merely something we achieve on our own.
- Can reciting the Long Healing Prayer cure a physical illness?
- The Bahá'í teachings consistently present prayer as a spiritual act whose outcomes rest entirely in God's wisdom and will, not as a formula that guarantees a specific physical result. 'Abdu'l-Bahá taught clearly that material illness calls for material remedies alongside spiritual ones, and that consulting qualified physicians is both wise and important. Prayer and medicine are understood as complementary, not competing, and healing in any form is regarded as a gift from God rather than an entitlement.
- What does it mean that faith itself could be 'healing'?
- The prayer links 'my Faith' directly with 'the Healing' in the same passage, which is suggestive rather than prescriptive. One reflection is that faith, genuine, grounded trust in a reality larger than our current suffering, has a quality that can support and sustain us through illness even when it does not remove it. It does not replace medical care, but it can change the interior landscape in which we receive that care, face uncertainty, and find meaning.
- Is this name of God unique to the Long Healing Prayer?
- The specific phrase 'my Faith' as a direct address to God in this form is distinctive to this passage in the prayer, embedded in that remarkable sequence of intimate names. The broader theme, that faith in God is itself a kind of healing and sustaining power for humanity, recurs in various ways across Bahá'u'lláh's writings, but this particular invocation has a tenderness and directness that makes it memorable on its own terms.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer