Do you sometimes have trouble praying for yourself or talking about yourself with God? You might spend a lot of time praying for your family, friends, neighbors, etc. You might pray for your church, your country, and the world’s biggest crises. You might even pray for your enemies!

But how much do you pray for yourself? How much do you talk with God about YOU? When you try to talk with God about yourself, do you feel selfish, prideful, or just plain awkward?

Not only is praying for yourself good and biblical, but it is also essential for maximum maturity and fruitfulness in God’s Kingdom.

4 Reasons to Pray for Yourself

1. It’s Biblical to Pray for Yourself

Is it wrong or selfish to pray for yourself?

The Bible tells us to pray about everything:

• Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

Jesus led the way in teaching us to pray for ourselves!

In the Lord’s Prayer, or the Model Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray for ourselves. The basics—or the starting place—to pray for ourselves include praying for God’s provision of our physical needs, forgiveness of our sins, and protection from the evil one:

• Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation,  but rescue us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)

Jesus even modeled His command to pray for self by praying for Himself. For example, in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed:

• “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Luke 22:42)

Praying for ourselves is not wrong but biblical and essential. Of course, we do need to yield our own desires and will to those of God.

2. God Is Able to Talk with Everyone at the Same Time!

Sometimes we might not want to “bother God” with our own seemingly small concerns, because He’s busy enough with bigger problems in the world. We might say:

• My problems are so minor compared to what other people are going through.
• God is busy with more important things in the world than me and my concerns.

But God is omnipresent! That means He is everywhere at the same time, and He is fully capable of focusing completely on everything at once. He has all the time in the world to talk patiently with you about what’s on your mind and heart, at the same time he’s doing the same thing with every other person on the planet. God does not have to schedule His days, so He’s never distracted by the clock while He’s with you! He’s fully and gladly with you every minute of every day.

King David, the writer of Psalm 139, says to God:

• I can never escape from your Spirit!
  I can never get away from your presence!
  If I go up to heaven, you are there;
  if I go down to the grave, you are there.
  If I ride the wings of the morning,
  if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
  even there your hand will guide me,
  and your strength will support me. (Psalm 139:7-10)

When we pray for ourselves, we are not taking God’s time or attention away from anyone or anything else. He is fully able and eager to spend unlimited time with us!

3. God Uniquely Loves YOU

The Bible tells us that, yes, God loves everyone in the entire world so much that He gave His one and only Son so that everyone can have a personal relationship with Him:

• For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

But to our infinite God, you are not just one person in the great masses of billions of people in the world. No, God really does know and love you uniquely:

• [Jesus said,] “… the very hairs on your head are all numbered.” (Luke 12:7)

How odd that God would count the hairs of our heads! What’s up with that? Well, that’s Jesus’ way of saying how specifically God uniquely loves each of us.

Sometimes people say:

• I pray for other people, but I feel selfish praying for myself.
• I’m already so blessed that I’d feel guilty asking for anything more from God.

Do you know what happens when you don’t pray for yourself—when you don’t talk with God about yourself? You deprive yourself—and God—of a richly personal relationship with Him!

Think about it. You and your friends and family forge bonds of love by talking about yourselves to one another. You share one another’s joys, struggles, and epically fun times. It’s the same with God! If you don’t share your thoughts, feelings, and deepest desires with God, it’s hard to grow a deeply personal relationship with Him.

God wants you to pray for yourself and talk about yourself to Him. When you do that, you accept His love for you, and you act upon your growing trust in Him.

4. Praying for Yourself Increases Fruitfulness in Your Christian Calling

As you pray for yourself and about yourself—being honest with God about your thoughts and feelings about yourself—you'll grow in self-confidence. You'll hear God say how much He not only loves you but also LIKES you and believes in you. That will give you more confidence and fruitfulness in your Christian calling. You'll know, deep down in your soul, that God will indeed finish the work He has called you to do. And you will then act and see Him accomplish it!

How to Pray for Yourself

Okay, so now, maybe you’re convinced of these four biblical facts about praying for yourself:

• It’s biblical to pray for yourself.
• God can talk with everyone at the same time.
• God loves you and wants to have a uniquely personal relationship with you.
• Praying for yourself increases fruitfulness in your Christian calling.

So maybe now you’d like to pray more for yourself and talk with God more about yourself. How can you do that?

Below, I’ll discuss two important aspects of praying for yourself:

• Some examples of what to pray for yourself. (That’s the easy part.)
• How to pray for yourself in ways that transform your relationship with God. (That’s a wildly exciting life-long journey!)

Examples of What to Pray For Yourself

Below is a short list of biblical examples of what to pray for yourself:

• Forgiveness of your sin
• Peace and comfort for your struggles
• Guidance for your decisions
• Financial help
• Help with a difficult relationship
• Strength and courage to do a difficult thing
• Physical or emotional healing
• Development of your spiritual gifts and talents
• A closer relationship with God
• Clarity for your Christian calling

A Relational Way to Pray for Yourself

At least as important as what to pray for yourself is how to pray for yourself.

For most of my life, when I prayed for myself, I asked God to do specific things that I wanted and that I believed He might want too.

Now, I don’t just pray my requests to God and leave it at that. I talk with Him about my requests. I tell Him why my prayer request is important to me. I talk conversationally with Him about what I think and feel about my request. I ask Him what He wants to say about it. In other words, God and I build our personal relationship by talking about the things that are important to both of us, day in and day out.

• For example, when I ask for forgiveness of sin, God talks with me about why I sinned, and He often tells me how He can fill the emotional need that prompted me to sin in the first place. So not only do I receive His forgiveness, I also feel His understanding and encouragement, and I’m less likely to sin in that particular way again.
• Another example is when I pray for my husband’s health. I share my fears with God, and He shores up my strength and trust in Him. Therefore, my fear more frequently morphs into faith.

I wrote more extensively about this kind of relational prayer in my blog entitled Conversation with God. You can click here to read that blog.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line for this topic is that praying for yourself is a powerful way to grow your uniquely personal relationship with God. He grants us the awesome privilege of being His sons and daughters, adopted lovingly into His own family through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

• See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know Him. (1 John 3:1)
• God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure. (Ephesians 1:5)

Take your deepest desires to our heavenly Father, and engage Him in conversation about them. May you experience the fullness of the uniquely fulfilling relationship He yearns to have with you!

• And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (Ephesians 3:18-19)

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