A prayer

A prayer for hope

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Pray this when you have stopped expecting things to change, when a hope has been disappointed, or when the waiting has gone on too long. These prayers ask for hope rather than announce it. They lean on passages where hope is recalled on purpose, held through waiting and given by God, not summoned by forcing yourself to feel better.

Also in this set: 25 Bible Verses About HopeJeremiah 29:11 Meaning

Prayers by situation

When you have stopped expecting anything to change

God, I am not sure when I stopped hoping. It was not a decision. Things just kept staying the same, and at some point I quit expecting otherwise, because expecting hurt more than not. I do not have hope to offer you this morning. I have a flat, careful tiredness instead. Would you start something in me that I cannot start myself? Not forced brightness, and not a pretence that it is all fine. Just a small willingness to look up again. If change is coming, let me notice it. If it is not coming yet, keep me from deciding that it never will.

After a hope that did not come true

God, I hoped for this. I prayed for it, planned around it, let myself picture it, and it did not happen. Now I feel foolish for having hoped at all, and part of me wants to never do it again. Meet me in the disappointment before anyone hurries me out of it. Let me grieve what I wanted without being told it was for the best. And when I am ready, which may not be soon, teach me to hope in you and not only in the outcome I had chosen. Keep this loss from hardening into a rule about my life.

When the waiting has gone on too long

God, I am still waiting. I have been patient, then less patient, and now I am just tired of the same prayer in the same words. Paul wrote that hope is for what cannot yet be seen, and I can see nothing yet. Help me wait without going numb. Give me something for today, even if the thing I am waiting for is still far off. And if there is something I am meant to do while I wait, rather than only endure, show me what it is.

When you wake up already discouraged

God, I opened my eyes and the weight was already there, before my feet touched the floor. I do not want to face today. The voice in Lamentations, standing in a fallen city, chose to call your mercy to mind, so I am trying that, clumsily. Here is one mercy: I am still here. Here is another: so are you. Help me find a third before lunch. Get me through the first hour, and then the next one, and let that count.

When depression makes hope feel out of reach

God, this is not ordinary discouragement. Everything is grey and heavy, and hope feels like a word in a language I used to speak. I cannot think my way out, and I am too tired to try. Hold on to me when I cannot hold on to you. Give me one person I can tell the truth to, and the courage to tell a doctor or counsellor if I have not yet. Let me take the help that comes as care from you. And if all I can manage today is wanting to want hope, please take that as a prayer.

When you are hoping for someone you love

God, someone I love is struggling, and I am carrying hope for them that they cannot carry for themselves right now. Some days it feels as if I am the only one who still believes things could be different. Keep that hope alive in me without letting it turn into control or pressure. Show me when to speak and when simply to stay. Watch over them in the places I cannot reach. And when I am discouraged on their behalf, hold the hope for both of us.

When everyone expects you to be the hopeful one

God, I am the one people come to for reassurance. I say it will be all right, I keep the plans moving, I find the bright side for everyone else. Underneath, I am running out. I do not know who I am allowed to fall apart in front of. Let it be you, at least. Let me stop performing hope long enough to receive some. Show me a friend who can hear the unpolished version. And remind me that keeping everyone afloat was never a job you gave me alone.

When the future you pictured is gone

God, the life I thought I would have has closed. Maybe it ended all at once, maybe it faded, but I can see now that it is not coming. I do not know what to hope for instead, and I am not ready to replace it. Help me let go without pretending I did not care. Stay with me in the space where the old plan used to be. When there is something new to see, give me eyes for it, even if it looks nothing like what I wanted.

What are you asking for when you pray for hope?

Hope is an odd thing to pray for, because the moment you most need it is the moment you are least able to produce it. Some people come to a prayer for hope after a long run of bad news. Some come after one particular disappointment that has made them wary of wanting anything. And some cannot point to a cause at all; the future has simply gone grey.

In Scripture, hope is rarely described as a mood. Lamentations 3 describes it as something called to mind on purpose. Romans 8 ties it to waiting for what is not yet seen. Hebrews 6 pictures it as an anchor, which holds without calming the sea. And in Romans 15 Paul asks God for it on behalf of his readers, which may be the most useful thing to know: hope is something you are allowed to ask for when you have none.

Is hope the same as staying positive?

Not in these passages, and the difference matters. Positivity tends to insist that things will turn out well. The hope described here is more stubborn and less cheerful. The psalmist in Psalm 42 is not upbeat; he is arguing with his own despair and telling his soul to hope in God anyway. Hope there sits alongside sorrow instead of replacing it.

That can be a relief for many women who feel they have to keep a bright face on for everyone else. You do not need to perform optimism in order to pray. The prayer for when everyone expects you to be the hopeful one is written for exactly that kind of tiredness.

Does Jeremiah 29:11 promise my plans will work out?

It is one of the most shared verses about hope, and it reads differently in its setting. It belongs to a letter sent to people taken into exile in Babylon, and the same letter tells them to build houses, plant gardens and seek the good of the city where they are. Read that way, the promise of a hopeful future is spoken to people being told to settle in for a long stay, not to expect a quick rescue. It speaks of God’s intentions toward his people; it does not guarantee that a particular plan of yours will succeed. Romans 8:28 is often stretched the same way, and a careful reading finds that it speaks of God working for good in all things for those who love him, without calling every event good.

What if I am afraid to hope again?

That fear usually has a history. Hoping and being let down teaches a person to stop hoping as a kind of self-protection, and it makes sense. None of these passages scolds that wariness. The prayer for after a hope that did not come true asks to grieve first, and only later to hope again, and to hope in God rather than only in one outcome. That distinction is not a trick for avoiding future disappointment; disappointment will still come. It is an attempt to set hope on something a single loss cannot take away.

What if the hopelessness will not lift?

Sometimes hopelessness is not something to be prayed through alone. When it is constant, when sleep, appetite or getting through the day are affected, or when your thoughts turn toward not wanting to be here, it is a reason to talk to a doctor or counsellor and to tell someone you trust today. If you are in danger, contact local emergency services or a crisis line now. Getting help is not a failure of faith. The prayer for when depression makes hope feel out of reach asks for the courage to do exactly that, and treats the help that comes as part of God’s care.

The passages this rests on

Bible translation

  1. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

    Lamentations 3:21-24 ESV

    This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

    Lamentations 3:21-24 KJV

    The voice in Lamentations 3 has seen the city fall, and still speaks of hope. Notice how it arrives: something is called to mind, deliberately, and hope follows from remembering the Lord's steadfast love and mercies that do not run out. The grief around it is not erased. For someone who cannot feel hopeful, the passage offers a practice rather than a mood: recalling what God has been, on purpose, while the ache is still there.

  2. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation

    Psalm 42:5 ESV

    Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

    Psalm 42:5 KJV

    The psalmist speaks to his own soul here, asking why it is so downcast and then telling it to hope in God. That is a person arguing with his own despair, not someone who has moved past it, and the same question comes back again later in the psalm. For anyone who has had to talk themselves through a hard morning, it is permission: hope can be something you say to yourself before you feel it.

  3. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

    Romans 8:24-25 ESV

    For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

    Romans 8:24-25 KJV

    Paul observes that a hope already seen is not really hope, since nobody hopes for what they already have, and that hoping for what is unseen means waiting for it patiently. Read that way, waiting is not evidence that hope has failed. It is what hope looks like while the thing hoped for is still out of sight. For a reader worn down by a long wait, that reframes the waiting itself.

  4. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

    Romans 15:13 ESV

    Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

    Romans 15:13 KJV

    This verse is itself a prayer. Paul asks that God, whom he describes as the source of hope, would fill his readers with joy and peace as they trust, so that they overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. The hope here is asked for and given, not generated by effort. That makes it a fair model for anyone with no hope of their own to bring: you can pray for it as Paul did.

  5. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,

    Hebrews 6:19 ESV

    Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;

    Hebrews 6:19 KJV

    Hope is pictured here as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure, in a passage about God keeping his promises. An anchor does not still the water. It holds a boat in place while the water keeps moving. For someone in a season that will not calm down, that is a more honest picture than hope as a cheerful feeling. The hope described holds because of who made the promise, not because the storm has passed.

Hope is not proved real by how you feel when a prayer ends. If you finish this and still feel flat, you have still done what the voice in Lamentations did, which is to call something to mind on purpose. Do it again tomorrow, and let today's small attempt be enough for today.

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version, which is in the public domain. Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.