You can pray without finding the right words. You can borrow a line someone else prayed, say the Lord's Prayer slowly, say one sentence, or stay quiet in God's presence, and Christian traditions count each of these as prayer.
Paul told the church in Rome that believers do not always know what to pray.
In Romans 8:26 he writes that "we don’t know how to pray as we ought," and goes on to describe help that comes in that very weakness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church starts from the same place: "Only when we humbly acknowledge that 'we do not know how to pray as we ought,' are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer."
If you are not sure whom you are praying to, you are in wide company. The Pew Research Center reported from its 2014 study of about 35,000 US adults that about one in five religiously unaffiliated adults prayed daily.
If you only have a minute
A line to borrow tonight
Psalm 70:1, "Come quickly to help me," or any line in the table below.
The Lord's Prayer
Words given to a disciple who asked how to pray. Say it once, slowly.
Lying down
Prayer from a bed is in Scripture. Psalm 63:6-7 is a prayer for the hours awake.
When you cannot pray at all
Ask someone to pray for you, and ask a chaplain or a friend to read a psalm aloud.
What can I pray when I have nothing of my own?
The psalms are the oldest borrowed words. Each was prayed first by someone in a particular dark, and each can be said as your own without composing anything. Six short ones follow, with who is speaking and when the line might fit.
Hover or tap a row to highlight it. Sort by a column heading; a third click puts the rows back in their original order.
| Psalm 6:2, "Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled." | A sick and distressed speaker asking for mercy | Worn out in body or in spirit |
| Psalm 22:1-2, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?" | A speaker crying out from forsakenness | When God feels far away |
| Psalm 42:1-2, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." | A soul thirsting for God, far from the temple | Missing what prayer used to feel like |
| Psalm 88:1-2, "Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you. Let my prayer enter into your presence." | Someone crying day and night from trouble | A long night with no answer yet |
| Psalm 130:1-2, "Out of the depths I have cried to you, Yahweh. Lord, hear my voice." | A voice calling from the depths, known by its Latin opening, De profundis | When you are at the bottom of something |
| Psalm 70:1, "Hurry, God, to deliver me. Come quickly to help me, Yahweh." | An urgent plea for help; in the Latin tradition its words open the Liturgy of the Hours as "O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me" | When all you have is "help" |
Athanasius, in his Letter to Marcellinus, describes the psalms as words in which a person reciting them recognizes their own life and feelings. That is what borrowed words give you: they were already prayed by somebody in the same dark, and you can say them without finding anything of your own.
A small idea from this site: tonight, save one line on your phone, in notes or as a message to yourself, so it is there at 3 a.m. when your own words are not. Short Bible verses for anxiety gives John Cassian's reading of Psalm 70:1, and Bible verses for chronic pain prays Psalm 13 and Psalm 142 for a flare.
One saved line is enough to reach for.
What does Romans 8:26 mean when Paul says we do not know how to pray?
This is the passage people keep coming back to, so it helps to read it in its setting. Paul is writing to the church in Rome, in the plural, in a chapter about present suffering and hope. Creation groans (verse 22), believers groan as they wait (verse 23), and then comes the verse about prayer:
26 In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered. 27 He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God.
Three Greek words carry it, and the Bible Hub lexicon gives each one. Astheneia is weakness, or lack of strength. Stenagmois alalētois means groanings that cannot be put into words. Hyperentynchanei means to intercede on behalf of another. The Catechism, paragraph 741, quotes the verse when it speaks of the Holy Spirit's help.
Christian readers differ on whose groaning this is. Some hear the Spirit's alone, some the believer's, some both, and some Pentecostal readers connect it with praying in tongues while others read it as wordless groaning. The text leaves that standing, and what is speaking in tongues covers the gift itself.
What the passage gives is this: weakness is named as the place prayer starts, and help is promised inside it. A groan with no words in it still belongs in prayer. What does the Bible say about suffering and what to say to someone who lost a child quote these verses; this page reads their setting.
Is the Lord's Prayer the most powerful prayer?
If you are looking for the strongest prayer, or the one that pleases God most, the Gospels give a plain answer: the prayer Jesus gave when he was asked. In Luke a disciple asks to be taught, and Jesus gives the words.
1 When he finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
In Matthew the prayer comes after Jesus tells his hearers that "your Father knows what things you need before you ask him." Matthew's form is longer and Luke's is shorter. The World English Bible's note says one manuscript tradition leaves out the closing line, "For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen."
Churches say it with small differences, "debts," "trespasses" or "sins," and Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant books each print their own. The Catechism, paragraphs 2759 to 2865, treats it as the fundamental Christian prayer, and Luther's Small Catechism takes it petition by petition.
Every tradition keeps it, and it was handed over as a gift of words, offered to people who did not know what to say. A way to use it: say it once, slowly, and stop on whichever line fits tonight. Bible verses for financial hardship prays the daily-bread line.
Can I pray with just a few words, or none at all?
Scripture keeps prayers that were silent, that took a single breath, or that were never written down. Hannah, in 1 Samuel 1:9-18, is praying in the temple while her lips move and no sound comes out.
The text says "Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice wasn’t heard." Eli takes her for drunk, she tells him she has been pouring out her soul before Yahweh, and he sends her away in peace.
Nehemiah prays in the gap between the king's question and his own answer: "Then the king said to me, “What is your request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven."
Jesus tells his hearers, "When you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret," and leaves the words to them. Mark 1:35 records Jesus rising early and going to a deserted place to pray, without recording what he said.
What these give is company for a short or wordless prayer. It also answers whether prayer must be silent or aloud: the Bible records both. The tax collector's one-line prayer is in how to come back to God, and Jesus in Gethsemane is in when the answer to a prayer is no or nothing.
Is it okay to pray lying down, and what is the best position?
Yes. Scripture records many postures, and none is presented as the one to use:
- Standing: 1 Kings 8:22 and Mark 11:25.
- Kneeling: Daniel 6:10 and Luke 22:41.
- Face to the ground: Mark 14:35.
- Hands lifted: 1 Timothy 2:8.
- On a bed: Psalm 4:4.
- Walking in a field: Genesis 24:63.
The Catechism, paragraphs 2700 to 2719, treats the body as part of vocal prayer, and Orthodox practice includes prostrations, standing and kneeling in particular services. For anyone too ill or tired to kneel, this is a prayer made from a bed.
The passage this site offers for the hours awake, from its Not sleeping topic, is Psalm 63:6-7, and it reads naturally as a prayer said on a bed. In the World English Bible, with the verses around it:
3 Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. 4 So I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. 5 My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, 6 when I remember you on my bed, and think about you in the night watches. 7 For you have been my help. I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul stays close to you. Your right hand holds me up.
Psalm 63 is written from a dry and difficult place. The night watches are simply when the speaker is awake, and the psalm gives him something to turn over during them. It gives you a prayer that starts lying down, remembering God and thinking about him in the night, with nothing asked of your body or the clock. Hold one question: "What could you turn over in the hours you are awake?" You can read Psalm 63:6-7 with the verses around it when you want more of its setting.
Prayer that starts lying down.
What is the best time to pray, and what do I say first?
Several hours appear in Scripture. Daniel kneels three times a day (Daniel 6:10). One psalmist prays evening, morning and noon (Psalm 55:17), another rises at midnight (Psalm 119:62), and Peter and John go up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer (Acts 3:1).
The Liturgy of the Hours, from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, sets offices through the day, and Jewish practice keeps three daily prayers, Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv, which you can read on Sefaria. Each tradition keeps its own hours, so the best time is the one you can keep.
You may have been handed a form. ACTS stands for adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication, a teaching aid used in Protestant churches. "The 5 P's of prayer" appears in different versions, usually praise, repentance, petition and thanksgiving, with the fifth P changing from teacher to teacher. Both are frames some people find useful, and nobody is required to use either.
For the first thing to say, traditions begin in different places: "Our Father," the name of God or of Jesus, thanks, or a fixed opening. Two set first words are the Jewish morning prayer Modeh Ani, "I gratefully thank You, living and enduring King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; great is Your faithfulness" (Sefaria), and the opening of Luther's morning blessing in the Small Catechism, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
What short prayers do the traditions keep for when words run out?
Several traditions keep a line short enough to say on one breath, each quoted here as printed:
- Orthodox: the Trisagion, "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us" (Orthodox Church in America prayers).
- Methodist: the Wesley Covenant Prayer, which begins, "I am no longer my own, but thine" (United Methodist Church).
- Catholic: the repeated line of the Divine Mercy chaplet, "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world" (US Conference of Catholic Bishops).
- Anglican: Compline and the prayers for individuals and families in the Book of Common Prayer (Church of England).
The Jesus Prayer is a practice more than a text. The Orthodox Church in America calls it the prayer of the heart. It is often prayed with a prayer rope, a chotki or komboskini, under the guidance of a spiritual father, and it is prayer and never a technique for producing results. Bible verses for chronic pain prints its words.
If you worry about doing it wrong, here is what Jesus asks. In Matthew 6:5-7 he describes prayer that is not a performance for others and not a heap of words, said to a Father who already knows what you need. That gives you permission to be brief.
Then there is silence. The Catechism describes contemplative prayer as "a simple gaze upon God in silence and love" (the same paragraphs, 2709 to 2719), and the Orthodox tradition speaks of hesychia, stillness. Traditions differ on whether silence is the highest prayer, and that can stay open. Bible verses for feeling far from God covers Centering Prayer, Quaker waiting, lectio divina and the Examen.
What if I cannot pray at all?
The traditions offer something first: other people pray for you. The Catechism speaks of the communion of saints and of intercession in paragraphs 946 to 962 and 2634 to 2636. James 5:14-16 has the elders of the church called to pray over the sick, and Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:34 describe Christ as living to make intercession.
A friend can read a psalm aloud, and a written prayer can be said by someone else. A hospital or hospice chaplain can sit with you; ask through the nurses' station, the social worker or patient services. Chaplains offer listening, prayer when asked, and support for people unsure what they believe.
One message to send, in this site's own wording: "Would you pray for me this week? I can't find the words myself."
If the lost words come with lost sleep, appetite and interest, a doctor can help. The National Institute of Mental Health lists "difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions" among the signs of depression, and the NHS lists concentration difficulties with low mood. Those are descriptions, not a diagnosis. Talk to a doctor alongside a pastor or priest, in the same week.
Some prayers are only sitting still.
If you have been on the receiving end of some of these, or have said one yourself, here is a line to use in place of each. They are this site's wording.
Hover or tap a row to highlight it. Sort by a column heading; a third click puts the rows back in their original order.
| "You're not praying right." | "Any words you have are enough, and so is none." |
| "Pray harder." | "Can I pray with you, and you just listen?" |
| "If you had faith, you would know what to say." | "Paul said he didn't always know either." |
| "Just talk to God like a friend," said to someone who cannot | "Would it help to borrow a psalm for now?" |
| Romans 8:26 read as "you must speak in tongues" or "you need do nothing" | "That verse is about help for when the words run out." |
Questions people ask
What if someone asks me to pray at a bedside and my mind goes blank? You can say the Lord's Prayer, read a psalm line aloud, or say one sentence such as "Lord, be with her tonight." A written prayer read aloud is prayer in the traditions above.
Does it count if I only say "help"? Psalm 70:1 is a short cry for help, and it opens the Liturgy of the Hours in the Latin tradition. A one-word cry has company there.
How long should a prayer be? Scripture records prayers of a single breath, and Luke 6:12 records Jesus praying through a night. No length is required.
Where to go next
If you are thinking of ending your life, please reach a person tonight. In the United States, call 988 or text 988, or chat online, through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, with help in Spanish at 988 en español. In Canada, 9-8-8 takes calls and texts. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. In Spain, the Línea 024 is open; in Mexico, Línea de la Vida; in Argentina, the Centro de Asistencia al Suicida. Everywhere else, Colombia included, Find A Helpline lists services by country.
One next step: tonight, wherever you are lying, say one borrowed line once, Psalm 63:6 or a line from the table, and let that count.
Bible Nudge offers one passage with the verses around it for what you are carrying. Find a passage.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Yahweh. The personal name of God in the Hebrew Bible, printed where many translations have "the LORD".