Some­times we have very lit­tle to say that feels sol­id, rea­son­able or help­ful in prayer. That’s one of the rea­sons I am so thank­ful that God gave us pow­er­ful, ancient words that we can med­i­tate on and pray back to Him. I’m shar­ing five vers­es that can be used as “breath prayers” when we don’t have words of our own.

On the left, you will find the verse, sug­gest­ed breath prayer pat­tern (not mag­ic words), and con­text where it might help. On the right is a deep­er dive into why the verse is appro­pri­ate and not a plat­i­tude of any sort. In fact, as I learned more about the orig­i­nal lan­guage in these pas­sages, I saw con­sis­tent­ly how raw the orig­i­nal text is. That was a fresh awak­en­ing for my soul. I hope the prayers and expla­na­tions serve you well, too.

Note: Breath prayers are sim­ple phras­es, focused on Scrip­ture, where you slow­ly breathe in think­ing about one phrase and then slow­ly breathe out think­ing or say­ing anoth­er.

When your load is getting to be too much

(and hope­ful­ly before you get to that point)

Psalm 55:22 “Cast your bur­den on the LORD, and he will sus­tain you”	Why this isn’t a plat­i­tude “Cast” sounds nice, but doesn’t imme­di­ate­ly pro­pel me to action. Maybe I’ve just heard vers­es like this too often with­out under­stand­ing. God is invit­ing us to “hurl” (yĕhab) our bur­dens on Him, not polite­ly request a brief respite. That com­mand is an effec­tive encour­age­ment to me, because some­times I don’t feel very polite about our sit­u­a­tion. God can and does take it when we throw what is too much for us before Him.
Breath prayer Inhale: “I need you to car­ry this.” Exhale: “You will hold me up.” Repeat three times.
When to pray it You feel like you can’t han­dle the sit­u­a­tion; you’re frus­trat­ed at the path that God as giv­en your fam­i­ly; you feel defeat­ed

When anxiety feels like it is swallowing you whole

Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God”	Why this isn’t a plat­i­tude The rich mean­ing of the word raphah trans­lat­ed as “be still” here can also be trans­lat­ed “release your grip” or “relax.” That is a pret­ty bold state­ment con­sid­er­ing the psalmist is quite pos­si­bly describ­ing being holed up in Jerusalem with the Assyr­i­ans (nasty, vio­lent con­querors of the time) breath­ing down their necks. God is com­mand­ing relaxed still­ness pre­cise­ly when cir­cum­stances scream for fran­tic action…. Just some food for thought.
Med­i­tat­ing prayer “Be still and know that I am God.” “Be still and know that I am.” “Be still and know.” “Be still.”
When to pray it Your mind is racing—about any­thing; you’re called in for a meet­ing about “con­cerns”; you’re wait­ing for results or a pro­ce­dure

When you can’t see the path forward

Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own under­stand­ing. In all your ways acknowl­edge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Isa­iah 30:20–21 “And though the Lord give you the bread of adver­si­ty and the water of afflic­tion, yet your Teacher will not hide him­self any­more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, say­ing, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”	Why this isn’t a plat­i­tude Some­times it seems like the nicest thing in life would be to get a beau­ti­ful schemat­ic from God for the future and how our lit­tle part of the Sto­ry fits. Then I would “under­stand.” But would I real­ly? Instead, I need to bat­ach—be con­fi­dent, secure, and with­out fear—because of the One in whom I’m trust­ing. There is no guar­an­tee of ever under­stand­ing His plan, but He will walk with you.
Breath prayer Inhale: “I trust in You.” Exhale: “You will always be my guide.” Repeat three times.
When to pray it You just got a new diag­no­sis; the ther­a­py is tak­ing forever/the treat­ment failed; the future feels so hard

When you ache from emptiness or anger

Psalm 62:8 “Pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”	Why this isn’t a plat­i­tude Two Hebrew words, shaphak and machaceh, in this verse are way more intense than I see in Eng­lish. Shaphak is “pour”, but not like a nice, lit­tle gob­let of refined prayer gen­tly drib­bling onto the altar. It is “gush” or “expel” and is used for Cain spilling Abel’s blood and God’s wrath being poured out. Not gen­tle. Machaceh is a shel­ter in a storm that is still rag­ing. Again, not dain­ty. These words give me con­fi­dence when I hear that God can han­dle and desires my unedit­ed prayers. Hon­esty isn’t the oppo­site of faith; pre­tend­ing is.
Breath prayer Inhale: “Hear my [anger/frustration/hurt/longing], O God.” Exhale: “You are my refuge” Repeat three times.
When to pray it After anyone’s out­burst; when you feel hyp­o­crit­i­cal; when you’re too tired to han­dle anoth­er thing

When you feel completely inadequate

2 Cor 12:9 “My grace is suf­fi­cient for you, for my pow­er is made per­fect in weak­ness.”	Why this isn’t a plat­i­tude Does God give us more than we can han­dle? Oh yeah. For­get the plat­i­tude. Your break­ing point is His entry point. He is always sup­posed to be the One we run to and He will be suf­fi­cient (arkeo). He’s promis­ing His ade­qua­cy will cov­er your inad­e­qua­cy. His grace meets you in the gap between what you have and what you need.
Breath prayer Inhale: “Help me be con­tent in Your grace.” Exhale: “Your pow­er is made per­fect in weak­ness.” Repeat three times.
When to pray it Your life doesn’t make sense (i.e., why would He give you this chal­lenge?); you can’t stop com­par­ing your­self to oth­er care­givers; you feel you’re fail­ing your child(ren).

Do you have some go-to pas­sages? Please com­ment below, so we can all grow.

If you’d find it help­ful to have them where you can see them, I’ve cre­at­ed print­able cards for each prayer. Below is an exam­ple. The front side has the prayer itself. The back side has the deep­er expla­na­tion for when you have a qui­et moment.

Want more resources?

Also, if these prayers res­onate, you might be inter­est­ed in Siege of the Soul—my book explor­ing the invis­i­ble bat­tles exhaust­ed par­ents face (told through Screw­tape-style let­ters from a demon try­ing to destroy a strug­gling par­en­t’s faith). It’s about nam­ing the dark­ness so we can find the Light.

Bri­anne Sut­ton is the author of Siege of the Soul, a book for par­ents nav­i­gat­ing faith, espe­cial­ly after an unex­pect­ed diag­no­sis. With a back­ground in neu­ro­science and per­son­al expe­ri­ence with spe­cial needs par­ent­ing chal­lenges, Bri­anne writes with empa­thy and insight for weary souls seek­ing hope.