Prayer for Strength

A Christian prayer for strength, for the season where what is being asked of you is larger than what you have. With three shorter prayers for the middle of a long day.

The prayer

Almighty God, I am at the end of what I can do on my own. You know the weight of this and You know exactly how much of it I am carrying. I am not asking to be spared it — I am asking to be held up under it. Renew what has been spent. Steady what is shaking. Give me strength for today only, not for the whole of it at once, because today is all I have been given. And where my strength is genuinely finished, be strong in its place. In Jesus' name. Amen.

History & tradition

Scripture is unusually frank that God's people run out. Elijah asked to die under a juniper tree the day after his greatest victory, and was answered with food and sleep before anything else. Paul learned that grace is 'made perfect in weakness' rather than in its absence. The Christian tradition has therefore never treated exhaustion as a failure of faith — the Psalms are full of it, and the Church has always prayed from inside it rather than waiting to recover first.

When to pray it

Pray this at the start of a day you are dreading, or in the middle of one that has gone long. If you are exhausted rather than weak, treat Elijah as the pattern: eat something, sleep, and pray after. That is the order God used.

Three short alternatives

Isaiah 40:31 as prayer

'They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.' Pray it slowly — walking without fainting comes last, and is the hardest of the three.

Six words

'Lord, I cannot. You can. Help.' There are days when this is the whole prayer, and it is enough.

For strength you need within the hour

'Go before me into this. Let me not carry it alone. Amen.' Pray it on the way in.

Pair it with daily practice

See our verses about strength and verses about perseverance. A timed five minutes in Quiethaven is often more use before a hard day than after it.

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles." — Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

Other prayers

• Morning Prayer
• Evening Prayer
• The Serenity Prayer
• The Jesus Prayer
• Prayer for Anxiety
• Prayer for Healing
• Prayer for Protection
• Prayer Before Surgery
• Night Prayer
• Prayer Before Meals
• The Prayer of St Francis
• The Apostles' Creed
• The Hail Mary
• Prayer for Guidance