Re: CF

I'm not asking for sympathy here, but I do appreciate the sentiment. It just so happens that, like so many others, my family is an unfortunate example of several ills. First, my sister and her husband discovered they were each carriers of the CF gene when they had their firstborn. Second, due to what I believe to be an outmoded (read: backward) view concerning the importance of a 'bloodline' and a misunderstanding of Mendelian genetics (i.e. probability) -- the latter being particularly egregious given the willingness to gamble on the livelihood of future persons -- they continued to have children. Their second child also has CF (both are boys, and CF patients are sterile), so they tried again, this time having a girl who thankfully doesn't have CF -- but she's a girl, so apparently unqualified to carry on the family 'line' (such as it is), so they had a fourth child, who turned out to be a boy, and also thankfully free of CF.

I digress. I strongly suggested to my sister that it would be highly inappropriate for them to continue having children (especially for something as ridiculous as a continuation of a patriarchal lineage), and hopefully that advice is heeded.

The point about CF was simply that praying for reprieve from diseases, genetic defects, etc., surely counts as selfless, and is presumably an appropriate request (and an example of precisely the sort of thing Christ had in mind when he said we could perform signs and wonders of our own).

Now, then...

How is this not worldly?

It is not worldly in the same way that the things to which we are to aspire are not worldly. That is, we are supposed to cast aside worldly things, but if something is 'worldly' because it "occurs during life," this suggests we should cast aside one another, or food, or acts of kindness, etc. That's obviously not what is meant by 'worldly.'

Rather, 'worldly' means of or pertaining to the [secular] world, especially those which are in conflict with Christlike ideals (forgive the clumsiness of that turn of phrase). I would take compassion to not be worldly, just as I would take praying for healing to also not be worldly. I should think, given the other uses of 'worldly' in both scripture and in a general theological context, you would agree; 'worldly' could, in some contexts, mean anything which "occurs in life," but in theological contexts it distinguishes between secular or 'of the flesh' affairs and righteous or 'of the spirit' affairs. Insofar as diseases are physical things, asking for healing is pretty obviously (on my view) not worldly.

Ultimately, it is an imprecise term, but I don't think my use is inappropriate, and prayer for healing seems to be, as I noted, an example of exactly the sort of thing Christ is recorded as having said we could magic away...

...but we can't.