Prayers for perseverance
Prayers and Bible verses for the stretch of a hard thing when you want to stop.
Perseverance is staying with something hard after the first energy has gone. The Bible ties it to hope and to character that forms slowly, and it points to God for the strength. These verses and prayers are for the long stretch, when stopping would be easier.
Feeling like giving up
Lord, I am close to giving up, and I need you to hold onto me because I am not sure I can hold on much longer myself.
Isaiah 40:29-31 · Galatians 6:9 · Philippians 4:13 · 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 · Joshua 1:9 · Psalm 27:14 · Hebrews 12:1-2 · Psalm 46:1 · Nehemiah 8:10 · Psalm 18:31-32 · 1 Corinthians 16:13 · Deuteronomy 31:6
Running a long race, exhausted
Lord, this has been a long race and I am wearing down.
Hebrews 12:1-2 · Galatians 6:9 · Isaiah 40:29-31 · 2 Timothy 4:7 · Philippians 3:13-14 · James 1:2-3 · Romans 5:3-5 · Psalm 73:26 · 2 Corinthians 4:16 · Habakkuk 3:19 · Psalm 121:1-2 · Ephesians 6:10
Needing courage for a hard conversation or task
Lord, I have something hard ahead of me today, a conversation, a task, a confrontation I have been avoiding.
Joshua 1:9 · Deuteronomy 31:6 · 1 Corinthians 16:13 · Philippians 4:13 · Isaiah 41:10 · Psalm 27:14 · 2 Timothy 1:7 · Ephesians 6:10 · Psalm 31:24 · Proverbs 28:1 · Acts 4:29-30 · Psalm 138:3
Trusting God through a trial
Lord, this trial is refining something in me that I would not have chosen for myself, and it is hard to see the purpose while I am still inside it.
James 1:2-4 · Romans 5:3-5 · 1 Peter 1:6-9 · 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 · Romans 8:28 · Isaiah 43:2 · Psalm 34:19 · Job 23:10 · Habakkuk 3:17-18 · 1 Peter 5:10 · Romans 8:18 · Hebrews 12:11
More prayers for perseverance
For the next hour
I can't picture the finish, so I'll aim for the end of this hour. Give me strength for the task in front of me, Father. When it's done, I'll ask for the next one.
When my faith is tired
Even praying feels heavy right now, God. I'm bringing you the little I have, so please let it count. Carry what I can't, and let me feel that you are carrying it.
For a friend who is struggling
Jesus, my friend is close to giving up. Send them an encouraging word today, maybe through me. Give me the sense to listen first, and let them feel that someone is walking next to them.
A morning prayer for a hard season
Good morning, Lord. Today may be hard in the same ways as yesterday. Give me patience for the ordinary work. Help me notice one thing that went right before I fall asleep.
Bible verses for perseverance
Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall; but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.
My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
The verses these prayers stand on
Every quotation on these pages is verbatim from the World English Bible, a public-domain translation: Isaiah 40:29-31, Galatians 6:9, Philippians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 27:14, Hebrews 12:1-2, Psalm 46:1, Nehemiah 8:10, Psalm 18:31-32, 1 Corinthians 16:13, Deuteronomy 31:6, 2 Timothy 4:7, Philippians 3:13-14, James 1:2-3, Romans 5:3-5, Psalm 73:26, 2 Corinthians 4:16, Habakkuk 3:19, Psalm 121:1-2, Ephesians 6:10, Isaiah 41:10, 2 Timothy 1:7, Psalm 31:24, Proverbs 28:1, Acts 4:29-30, Psalm 138:3, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 1:6-9, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 43:2, Psalm 34:19, Job 23:10, Habakkuk 3:17-18, 1 Peter 5:10, Romans 8:18, Hebrews 12:11.