Are you sometimes at a loss for words when you want to connect with God? Do you ever wish your prayers felt more powerful or inspired? Do you find prayer boring or stale? One way to infuse new strength, inspiration, and vitality into your prayer life is to try praying the prayers of the Bible. And there are so many to choose from! There’s something for every occasion and mood. The Bible is God’s love letter to us, and praying Scripture back to the Maker of heaven and earth can be a refreshing blessing.
Why Learn to Pray From the Bible?
Whether you’re about to pray your very first prayer ever—so exciting!—or you’ve been praying for decades and want to keep growing, it doesn’t hurt to get a little support. And where better to find it than in scriptural prayers? These are prayers that God decided to include in His holy book for us to learn from! Pretty cool.
The Bible is filled with honest and effective prayers from people just like us. You and I can pray these same prayers today in personal, practical ways.
A Whole Variety of Bible Prayers
The Psalms are a whole prayer book right in the middle of the Bible—always a great place to start. David prayed just about every kind of prayer there is. You can pray Scripture to trust God, confess sin and ask for mercy (David’s prayer), find wisdom (Solomon’s prayer), and seek favor and success (Nehemiah’s prayer). Kings, cupbearers, and shepherds—everyone needs God. Of course there’s the classic Lord’s Prayer that Jesus Himself taught us to pray in the New Testament, and so many more prayers from people’s daily life in Genesis through Revelation.
But today we’ll look more in depth at seven other short Bible prayers that are so helpful for the Christian life. These prayers from God’s Word can become our own prayers. Biblical prayers aren’t just interesting—they’re encouraging examples of powerful, personal connection with God. These prayers can jump right off the page into your heart and strengthen your own life as they did for the original people who prayed them.
Not Magic Formulas
Prayers from the Bible aren’t any more “spiritual” than whatever you might come up with to say to God on your own.
Before we get into the Scriptures and start praying, it’s worth noting that prayers from the Bible aren’t any more “spiritual” than whatever you might come up with to say to God on your own. While anything in the Bible obviously carries some extra spiritual weight, these prayers aren’t magic formulas that are more likely to be heard by God.
What matters is that you mean what you say when you talk to Him, and you’re open to what He’s saying, too. He’s listening to your heartfelt prayers from a humble heart—or at least a heart wanting to become more humble. Let’s get to it!
7 Prayers From the Bible
1. A Prayer for Help: The Canaanite Woman
The woman came and knelt before [Jesus]. “Lord, help me!” she said. Matthew 15:25 NIV
You can find more context for this very short, direct prayer in Matthew 15:21-28. But basically, there was a woman who cared very much about her daughter and knew the girl needed more help than a mother could give. This woman believed Jesus could help, so she dared to ask Him to!
Even though she was a stranger from another land and the people around her were telling her to go away, she persevered in her request. She got down on her knees in humility and asked Jesus for help until He commended her for her faith and gave her what she needed.
See, a prayer for help doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be long or flowery. It just needs to be directed in faith to the One who has the power to do something. Jesus is God, so He has all the power. And He’s listening.
How to Pray It Today: What do you need help with? Turn to God and simply ask Him for what you need. He loves hearing from you and has no shortage of resources. Humble yourself before Him and believe He loves you and can change things.
2. A Prayer of Belonging: Abba, Father!
... you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” Romans 8:15 NASB
This extremely brief yet powerful prayer comes from a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the early church in Rome, teaching and encouraging them. Abba is simply the Aramaic word for “dad”—Jesus used it to address His heavenly Father in Mark 14:36.
So this is a prayer of belonging, acknowledging that we are kids of the Most High God! We get to call the King of the universe our dad! He cares about us intimately and is tenderly watching over us to provide our daily bread, along with heaping amounts of His abundant mercy and steadfast love.
Saying even one word to God can be a significant prayer moment when it’s filled with our full attention and reminds us of how close He is.
How to Pray It Today: Who is God to you? Do you hear Him calling you His beloved child? Turn your heart to Him and call Him Father, trusting afresh in His deep love for you.
3. A Prayer of Surrender: Jesus in Gethsemane
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42 NIV
This is Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before He was killed for us. Jesus gives us the ultimate lesson in how to ask for what we want, yet still fully surrender to the will of the Father. Jesus didn’t especially look forward to the unspeakable suffering of the cross—not anyone’s preferred “cup” to drink. He would have dearly liked another way, and He asked for it.
But He was committed to obeying His Father even if it led all the way to an excruciating death. And it did go there. But Jesus didn’t stay dead! He rose, conquering death and bringing about the salvation of the whole world. God had good long-term plans.
How to Pray It Today: Are you going through something you’d rather not? Tell God how you feel about it and what you would like. But don’t stop there. Ask for His guidance and the strength to follow Him on the path He’s marked out for you—He has called you for a purpose, and He will work all things for good in the end.
4. A Prayer of Forgiveness: Jesus on the Cross
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” … Luke 23:34 NIV
Jesus spent a lot of time praying, even to the very end of His earthly ministry. Throughout His indescribably painful hours on the cross itself, He was still connecting with His heavenly Father, opening His heart and looking up.
One of His most incredible prayers was this short one asking the Father to forgive the people actively mocking and killing Him. As believers in Christ Jesus, we’re called to follow His example of forgiving those who hurt us. Prayer is a good way to mold our hearts into the shape of forgiveness.
How to Pray It Today: Has someone hurt you or offended you? Are you holding something against someone? Ask God to help you forgive them, and ask God to bless them. It doesn’t make what they did right, but it does set you free from the burden of bitterness.
5. A Prayer to Know God Better: Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. … Ephesians 1:17-19 NIV
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Ephesian church and modeled ways all believers in Christ can pray. Here, Paul leads us to pray to get to know God better. How? Through His Spirit. As we pay attention to His presence in us, the Holy Spirit teaches us wisdom and opens our spiritual eyes to see more of who God is.
As we get to know God, we learn more of the hope He gives, the spiritual riches He has promised us, and His enormous power living inside us. It’s pretty mind-blowing when we take time to think about it, and it can change our whole perspective on life.
How to Pray It Today: When’s the last time you acknowledged the Holy Spirit of God inside you? Ask Him to help you get to know Him better and to fill you with God’s hope and the power to live for Him.
6. A Prayer for Fruitfulness: Paul’s Prayer for the Colossians
... We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father … Colossians 1:9-12 NIV
Paul also wrote a letter to God’s people in the ancient city of Colossae. In these verses, he shares his prayer that they be filled with a better understanding of God’s purpose for them so they could be fruitful in “every good work.” He asks God for strength, endurance, knowledge, and patience for these believers so they could live a life worthy of the Lord God’s call and please Him.
We can’t do anything good without God helping us. So asking for His spiritual resources and guidance is really important as we aim to live for Him. And as He answers, we get to give “joyful thanks” in prayer too!
How to Pray It Today: What kind of fruitfulness is God calling you to? Ask Him to guide you in good works and provide what you need to live for Him and do His will today. Give Him thanks in advance for what He will do through you!
7. A Prayer of Worship: Mary’s Song
And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior ...” Luke 1:46-47 NIV
When Mary, who would miraculously become the mother of Jesus, heard God’s astounding plans for her life, her reaction revealed her priorities: She wanted to be a servant of God first. She decided to praise God with joy, even though the path ahead would be very challenging.
Mary let her heart go wild in appreciation of God and His power, sovereignty, provision, mercy, blessing, and mindfulness of her. She put her whole soul and spirit into a prayer of worship, expressing her awe of God and how He keeps His promises. You can read the whole thing here.
Prayers of praise and worship are good for our souls, because it’s what we were made for.
How to Pray It Today: What aspect of God’s character can you praise Him for right now? Tell Him what you love about Him and thank Him for what He’s done for you—big and small.
Try It: Pray One Today
The Bible includes so many prayers, but they’re only useful to us if we learn something from them and turn them into our own heartfelt prayers. Which one of the prayers above will you start with? Pick any one of them. God is listening and loves you!