A prayer for loneliness
The prayer
Lord, the house is quiet and I have already talked to myself out loud today.
I am not asking for people for the sake of it. I am asking not to disappear: that somebody notice I exist, and that I notice somebody.
Until that comes, stay — not as second best, but because you got here first.
And give me the nerve for the first move, which is always the most embarrassing one.
Amen.
In short
This is a prayer for the days when loneliness presses hardest. It was written for this site and it is signed. It asks for two things rather than one: the company of God, and the nerve to take the first step towards somebody. Scripture treats company as a need, not a luxury.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 5 min read
When to pray it
Late on a Sunday afternoon, on the way home, or at the hour when the quiet gets heaviest. And before sending the message you have been putting off for days.
The prayer asks for two presences, and which comes first matters less than the fact that there are two. A devotion that settles loneliness by saying God is enough tends to produce one specific and unpleasant effect: the person starts feeling guilty for still wanting people. Scripture does not support that guilt. It treats the need for human company as part of the design, and at no point presents God’s presence as a replacement for it.
The closing request is the most practical thing on this page: nerve for the first move. The longer you spend alone, the more expensive it looks to call anybody — the message seems intrusive, the invitation seems excessive, and silence gets easier to keep than to break. That is why the prayer asks for nerve rather than for people: the part that depends on you is small, and it is exactly the part that jams.
One quiet caveat. Prolonged loneliness is not a triviality, it has real effects on health, and it usually travels with low motivation and a general flatness. If it lasts months without letting up, or if it arrives alongside changes in sleep, appetite or the willingness to get out of bed, it is worth talking to a professional. Praying and getting help fit in the same day.
Where this prayer comes from
When it appeared Written for Faith Flame in 2026
The first thing the Bible calls “not good” is not a sin: it is being alone. Genesis 2:18 arrives in a chapter where everything else has just been called good, and the sentence breaks the sequence. That says something about how Scripture handles company — as a need built into the design, rather than a preference of temperament.
This prayer was written for this site, and that is why it is signed. There is no traditional formula for loneliness, which is odd in so large a devotional inheritance. What there is are psalms, and in them the complaint of being alone appears unadorned. Psalm 25 asks God to look at someone who is alone and afflicted. Psalm 88 describes acquaintances sent far off and the sense of being shut in with no way out.
It avoids the easy exit, which would be to say that God is enough. Scripture writes that nowhere. It commands looking after one another, eating together, giving hospitality, visiting prisoners — and Paul himself ends a letter asking somebody to come quickly because he is on his own. A prayer that solved loneliness by declaring it unnecessary would be consoling with a line that is beautiful and false.
Little-known details
The first thing declared “not good” in the Bible is being alone
Paul ends his life asking for company, and the text keeps the request
What the passages say
18The Lord God also said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. Let us make a helper for him similar to himself.”
The first thing the Bible declares not good. The setting is a creation chapter in which everything so far had been approved, and the sentence interrupts the run — which gives loneliness a weight that quick devotional reading tends to take off it.
16Look upon me and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor.
A two-line request with no context, no explanation and no embarrassment: look at me, have mercy, I am alone. It is the shortest model of prayer on this subject that Scripture offers. (Psalm 25:16 in Hebrew-numbered Bibles.)
7Where will I go from your Spirit? And where will I flee from your face?
8If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I descend into Hell, you are near.
9If I assume my feathers in early morning, and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea,
10even there, your hand will lead me forth, and your right hand will hold me.
The psalm does not promise that human company is coming; it promises that there is no place outside God’s reach, including the places a person picked in order to hide. Notice that the list takes in the far edge of the sea and the realm of the dead. (Psalm 139 in Hebrew-numbered Bibles.)
5Let your behavior be without avarice; be content with what you are offered. For he himself has said, “I will not abandon you, and I will not neglect you.”
The promise turns up in the middle of an instruction about money, which usually surprises people. That everyday frame is what makes it useful here: the guarantee of not being abandoned is not delivered in a mystical moment, but among practical advice about living.