When I was raising my kids, I often took a moment to lock myself in the bathroom, get down on my knees, and ask God to make me patient.
It was a hard prayer. After all, I was asking God for help specifically because I knew I wasn’t patient. It was humbling.
How to Pray for Yourself
The Google search engine logs numerous requests each month for similar search questions:
- Can you pray for yourself?
- Is it bad to pray for yourself?
- Is it okay to pray for yourself?
- Is it selfish to pray for yourself?
If you ever ask yourself these questions, you are not alone! There are lots of other Christians out there wondering the same thing.
The good news is that not only is it okay to pray for yourself, the Bible gives specific instructions about how to do so. There are even stories in Scripture about people praying to God for their own good.
Supplication in the Bible
Supplication isn’t a word we use often in our day-to-day lives. We normally just say prayer.
Philippians 4:6, ESV, says:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
The word supplication simply means “to plead humbly.” We can plead humbly for others, but we usually pray that way for ourselves. We generally use the word intercession to indicate prayers on behalf of someone else.
It is right and good to pray for ourselves. In the second half of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus directs us to make requests for ourselves:
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:11-13, ESV)
In the prayer Jesus gives us, we ask God to:
- Provide for our needs.
- Forgive us for our sins (and to give us the strength to forgive others).
- Deliver us from temptation and evil.
Praying for ourselves is actually a part of spiritually suiting up for warfare. Ephesians 6:10-18 gives us instructions for putting on the whole armor of God. In addition to wearing the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of readiness to share the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God), we also must pray! Ephesians 6:18, ESV, says:
…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…
Humbly pleading that God will grow us in godly character, that he will guide us in wisdom, and that he will keep us from evil is all a part of “standing against the schemes of the devil”.
For all those times I pleaded for patience, on my knees in our bathroom, God met me with what I needed for that moment. Over time, he sanctified me, growing me in holiness.
The Bible also shares with us the prayers of supplication prayed by the heroes of our faith.
Prayers of Supplication in Scripture
You can pray for yourself in a biblical way as you learn about prayers of supplication that were prayed by people in Scripture.
The devotional I wrote for you, 60 Scriptures You Can Pray (Whitaker House, 2026) has eight types of prayer you will learn about. Here are the devotions you’ll study covering biblical prayers of supplication!
- The God Who Sees Me | Genesis 16:1-16
- Pouring Out My Soul to the Lord | 1 Samuel 1:9-20
- Remember Me, O God | Nehemiah 13:6-32
- Lead Me in Your Truth | Psalm 25
- Help My Unbelief! | Mark 9:14-29
- Grant Us Boldness | Acts 4:23-31
- May We Do His Will | Hebrews 13
This year, learn more about prayer–and pray for yourself the way the heroes of our faith did!
Bible Resources for Your Kids
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60 Scriptures You Can Pray
The Bible is full of prayer that you can pray too!
How do you pray when you don’t know what to say? The Bible holds the answer.
God doesn’t expect us to pray without guidance. In fact, Scripture is full of examples of ordinary people approaching our extraordinary God in prayer.
Award-winning author Danika Cooley believes that praying God’s Word teaches us how to best communicate with our Lord:
“There are so many lessons we can learn from Scripture about how to approach God and what to expect when we do.”
Danika’s devotional 60 Scriptures You Can Pray covers eight types of prayer from the Bible, the expectations we should have when we pray, and the right heart attitude for prayer.
- Praise | We adore God for who he is.
- Thanksgiving | We thank God for all he has done.
- Confession | We admit our sin to the God who saves us.
- Supplication | We humbly ask God to provide for our needs.
- Intercession | We ask God to meet the needs of others.
- Deliverance | We cry out to God for help in times of trouble.
- Lament | We bring our sorrow to God, our comforter.
- Guidance | We ask for God’s help in determining his will for our lives.
When you read 60 Scriptures You Can Pray, you will:
- Develop a habit of praying daily over a two-month period
- Learn more about prayer in Scripture
- Understand eight different types of prayer
- Expand your understanding of how to pray biblically
- Become better acquainted with God, His Word, and why we pray
Packed with thoughtful explanations of biblical prayer and practical application in each devotion, 60 Scriptures You Can Pray is the tool you need to learn more about prayer–straight from God’s Word.
Want to equip the women in your church to pray biblically?
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