How to Pray When You Are Too Tired to Pray

You sat down to pray and fell asleep inside the first sentence.

It is nine at night. The dishes are not done. The lamp on the side table is on because you came in here with the thought that you would pray before you went to bed, and now your head is back against the cushion and your eyes are closed. You open them. You start again. “Father, I just…”

You cannot think of what comes next. The sentence sits there, and the tiredness that put you on this couch is the same tiredness that is keeping the words from coming.

This is one of the places people quit on prayer altogether. It does not need to be.

The short answer: When you are too tired to pray, pray tired. Say one word, or a name, or “I am here,” and leave it at that. Scripture does not call you to pray out of strength you do not have. Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) The tiredness is not the reason to stay away. It is the reason to come.

Elijah Was Also Too Tired to Pray

The prophet Elijah had just called fire down from heaven in front of a nation, and three verses later he was running for his life.

He ran a day into the wilderness, sat down under a broom tree, and asked God to let him die. The prayer in 1 Kings 19:4 is one line long: he had had enough, and he wanted the LORD to take his life. Then he lay down and slept.

Watch what God does. He does not scold him. He does not ask for a better prayer. An angel touches him, feeds him bread baked on coals, and lets him sleep again. Then He feeds him a second time, because the road ahead is too great for him. That is the sense of 1 Kings 19:7, that the way is too great for the man under the broom tree.

Only after food, and sleep, and more food, does the LORD finally meet him on the mountain and ask what he is doing there. The conversation comes last. The caring comes first.

If you are too tired to pray tonight, you are not farther from God than Elijah was. You are standing where he stood. And the first thing the LORD does with that tiredness is not a lecture. It is a loaf of bread and a long sleep.

The Word Jesus Used

In Matthew 11, Jesus steps into the middle of a crowd that has been working all its life for a God that stayed too far away, and He says this:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Look at the word labor. In Greek it is kopiaō, and a lexicon lets it go all the way to the bone. It is the exhaustion of a day laborer at the end of a day in the field. It is the kind of tiredness that keeps aching after you lie down. Jesus does not call to the ones who have energy left. He calls to the ones whose arms are shaking.

And rest, in the next line, is the Greek anapauō: to stop; to be refreshed; to let the oars drop in the water. There is no condition on it. He does not say “when you have gotten yourself together, come.” He says “come,” and then He says “I will give.” The giving is on His side.

Then look at how He describes Himself in the same breath. “I am gentle and lowly in heart.” The Greek praus, gentle, is the word for a horse that has been broken and will no longer startle; the Greek tapeinos, lowly, is the word for a man who kneels down. Jesus is telling you the posture He takes toward a tired person. He does not stand over you. He stoops.

So when you drag yourself onto the couch and open your mouth and no sentence comes, you are coming to a Lord who went looking for you in that condition.

The Prayer That Does Not Need Finishing

Jesus had already told His disciples what to do when they could not stay awake.

In Gethsemane the three of them kept falling asleep, and He kept coming back to them. On the last trip He said: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:38) He did not say the willing spirit cancels out the weak flesh, and He did not say the weak flesh cancels out the willing spirit. He said both are true at the same time.

Which means you are not disqualified. You are just tired.

Earlier the same evening He had taught them how short a real prayer can be. “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:8) Then He gave them the Lord’s Prayer, which you can say in under forty seconds. That was by design. He is not after your word count. He is after you.

So here is what you can take off tonight. You can take off the idea that a tired prayer is a bad prayer. You can take off the idea that you have to feel like praying first. You can take off the paragraph you have been trying to compose and come with the one word you actually have. For more on this see how to pray when you don’t know what to say, the hub this guide belongs to; and when the words will not come at all, this is also what Hannah’s silent prayer shows about a God who hears.

A Nurse at the End of a Twelve-Hour Shift

She comes home at eight in the morning and the sun is already up and she has to close the bedroom curtains to make it look like night. She sits on the edge of the bed in her scrubs and she puts her face in her hands.

She has not prayed in four days. There is a Bible on the dresser and a coffee cup from Sunday on the nightstand, and the thought that she has not prayed in four days adds its own small weight on top of the twelve hours she just worked.

“Lord,” she says. And then nothing.

She stays there with her face in her hands long enough that the sentence does not come back. Finally she lies down the way she is, scrubs and all, and goes to sleep.

The LORD who kept Elijah under the broom tree is in that room. He does not need the second sentence. He got the first word, and He got the woman.

One Thing to Do Tonight

Here is the whole plan.

Before you turn out the light, say one word. “Jesus.” “Father.” Your child’s name. Your own name. If a plain sentence surfaces, say that instead, in the voice you would use at your kitchen table. Then stop. Do not force a second sentence. Do not apologize. Lie down.

The One who said I will give you rest has not changed His mind about you in your tiredness. He is the One who feeds His prophets twice before He talks with them, and He is the One who said, “So He gives His beloved sleep.” (Psalm 127:2)

If brief, honest prayer is the only kind you have in you right now, that is the whole subject of The 1-Minute Heart Prayer Method: one honest minute, and a Father who already knows.

Scripture to Pray When You Are Worn Out

• “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
• “He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.” (Isaiah 40:29)
• “But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
• “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:38)
• “So He gives His beloved sleep.” (Psalm 127:2)

A Prayer for the Tired

Father, I am worn out, and I came anyway. I do not have a long prayer in me tonight. I do not have a good one. I have this one word, and I have myself, and You said that was enough to come with. Thank You that the yoke is easy and the burden is light. Thank You that You are gentle and lowly in heart. Give Your beloved sleep. Hold the day I just put down. I will take You up on the rest. In Jesus’ name, amen.

And listen for what He has been saying over your exhausted evenings:

You did not have to earn this. You never did. Lie down, child. I have the night.

You do not have to pray strong. You only have to come.