Prayers for Love

Short prayers first, because that is usually what people are looking for. Longer prayers, prayers for someone you love, and Bible verses about love are further down.

Short Prayers for Love

Each of these is a complete prayer. Say one out loud if you can.

• Lord, teach me to love well.
• Father, put love in this house.
• God, let me be loved and let me be worth loving.
• Jesus, soften what has gone hard in me.
• Lord, help me love without keeping score.
• Father, thank You for the people who love me.
• God, do not let me settle for less than You have for me.
• Lord, let my love look like Yours today.

A Short Prayer for Someone You Love

Lord,
Look after them today.
Give them what they need and take care of what I cannot reach.
Let them know they are loved, by You and by me.
Amen.

A Short Prayer for a Man You Love

Father,
Guard him today: his health, his work, his mind, his faith.
Give him people who tell him the truth.
Make him the man You made him to be, and give me patience for the parts that are still becoming.
Amen.

A Short Prayer for a Woman You Love

Lord,
Carry her today.
Where she is tired, give her rest. Where she is anxious, give her quiet.
Let her be cherished and not merely needed.
Amen.

Short Prayers Which Love You Are Praying For For Love in Your Life For Someone You Love When Love Has Been Lost God’s Love Bible Verses Questions

Which Love You Are Praying For

Love is one English word doing at least three jobs, and prayers for the three are not interchangeable. It is worth a moment to know which one you came here for.

• Love you want to receive. A partner, a marriage, someone to build a life with. Prayers for that are below, and if you are praying specifically for a husband or a future spouse, we have a fuller page: prayers for a husband.
• Love you want to give. Patience with a difficult person, a heart that has gone cold, learning to love the way Christ did. That is a different prayer and it has its own page: prayers to love others.
• Love you already have and want to protect. A marriage under strain, a relationship that needs mending. See prayers for relationship and marriage.

A Prayer for Love in Your Life

When You Are Waiting for Someone

Lord God,
I would like to be loved, and I have stopped pretending that does not matter to me.
Bring the right person, in Your time, and give me the sense to recognise them when they are ordinary rather than dramatic.
Keep me from settling out of loneliness, and from holding out for someone who does not exist.
Make me, in the meantime, into the kind of person worth finding.
And if the waiting goes on longer than I want, do not let me become bitter about it.
Amen.

A Prayer When You Feel Unlovable

Father,
There is a voice that tells me nobody would want this if they saw all of it.
You have seen all of it.
Let that be the thing I believe about myself, rather than the other voice.
Amen.

Prayers for Someone You Love

A Prayer to Pray Over Them

Lord,
Thank You for them. I do not say that often enough and I certainly do not say it to You often enough.
Keep them safe today in the ways I will never know about.
Give them work that means something, people who are good to them, and rest that actually rests them.
Where I am hard to live with, give them patience. Where they are hard to live with, give me the same.
Amen.

A Prayer for Someone Far Away

God,
They are not where I can reach them and I am more aware of it today than usual.
Be near them in my place.
Close the distance in whatever way You close distances.
Amen.

A Prayer for Someone Going Through Something Hard

Lord,
I cannot fix this for them and I have tried.
Hold them. Send practical help and someone who turns up.
Let me be useful rather than only worried.
Amen.

More prayers for the people you love: prayers for a friend, prayers for family and prayers for healing.

When Love Has Been Lost

Something worth saying plainly before the prayer. A great deal of what is written on this subject promises that the right prayer will bring a particular person back. Christian prayer does not work that way, and it would be unkind to suggest otherwise. Another person’s heart is theirs, and God does not override it on request.

What you can ask for is honest: that God works in the situation, that what can be healed is healed, and that you are carried either way.

A Prayer After a Relationship Has Ended

Lord,
It is over and I am not ready for it to be over.
I am not going to tell You what the outcome should be, though I want to.
If there is something here that can be mended, mend it. If there is not, give me the grace to stop pulling at it.
Take the bitterness before it sets.
Let me want good things for them, which I do not yet.
Amen.

A Prayer for Reconciliation

Father,
Something broke between us and I have gone over my part in it many times.
Where I was wrong, I am sorry, and I will say so to them and not only to You.
Soften both of us.
Give us a conversation that goes somewhere rather than the same one again.
And if reconciliation is not possible, let there at least be peace.
Amen.

If this is a marriage rather than a relationship, there is a fuller page: prayers for marriage restoration.

Prayers for God’s Love

A Prayer to Know You Are Loved

Father,
I know You love me in the way I know the capital of a country: as a fact I could recite and have never felt.
Move it the eighteen inches from my head to my chest.
Not a feeling I have to manufacture. Something that holds when I am not trying.
Amen.

A Prayer of Thanks for God’s Love

Lord,
You loved me before I was any use to You and You have not adjusted since.
Thank You.
Let it change how I treat people today.
Amen.

Bible Verses About Love

1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 John 4:7: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.”

Colossians 3:14: “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Romans 12:9-10: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.”

Proverbs 17:17: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.”

1 John 3:18: “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

1 Corinthians 13 is read at almost every wedding, which has slightly ruined it. Read it again as a description of what love costs rather than what it feels like. Every item on the list is something you do rather than something that happens to you.

Questions People Ask

What is a good short prayer for love?

“Lord, teach me to love well” is a complete prayer and covers more ground than it looks. If you are praying for a particular person, “Lord, look after them today, and let them know they are loved” is enough. There are more at the top of this page.

Is there a prayer to make someone love me?

No, and it is worth being straight about why. Prayer is asking God, not directing Him, and another person’s heart belongs to them. A prayer aimed at overriding someone’s will is closer to a spell than to Christian prayer. What you can pray is that God works in the situation, that you are given clarity, and that you are carried whichever way it goes. That prayer is above.

How do I pray for someone I love?

Pray for specific things rather than general blessing: their health, the thing they are worried about this week, the person who is making it difficult. Then tell them you are praying. Naming the actual situation matters more than the wording.

What does the Bible say about love?

That it starts with God rather than with us: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). And that it is measured by action rather than feeling. 1 Corinthians 13 defines love almost entirely by behaviour, which is why it is harder than the wedding readings make it sound.

Can I pray to find love?

Yes. Asking God for a partner is a normal and honest prayer. It is worth also praying about the waiting, since that is the part that does the damage: bitterness while you wait, or settling out of loneliness. The prayer above asks for both.

What do I pray after a breakup?

Ask for the bitterness to be taken before it hardens, which is the thing most likely to do lasting harm. Then ask for either mending or the grace to let go, and mean both halves. There is a prayer for this above.

How do I pray to love someone I find difficult?

That is a different prayer from any on this page, and one of the hardest in Christian life. We have a page for it: prayers to love others, including praying for someone you do not like and loving family who are hard work.

More Prayers

Prayers to love others · Prayers for a husband · Prayers for marriage · Prayers for a friend · Prayers for family · Prayers for comfort · Prayers for guidance · Browse all prayers