An evening prayer for peaceful sleep, examination of the day, and trust in God's protection through the night.
Lord, watch over me through the night. Calm my mind, restore my body, guard those I love. Into your hands I commend my spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Pray this prayer at bedtime as the last thing before sleep, particularly when you are anxious about tomorrow, when grief or loss is making sleep difficult, when you have wronged someone and need to make peace before resting, after a hard day when ending the day with God is the best way to release it, or as a daily discipline to make every night an act of trust.
Christian prayer before sleep has been part of the Church's daily life since the earliest centuries. Compline — the final prayer of the monastic day, prayed just before sleep — has been observed continuously since the 6th century. The biblical foundation is Psalm 4:8: 'In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.' Sleep itself is a daily exercise of trust — every night we surrender consciousness, control, and self-protection into God's hands. The Hebrew worldview saw sleep as a daily picture of death and the morning as a daily resurrection — making evening prayer a practice in trusting God for what we cannot guarantee ourselves. Christian traditions across centuries have included three elements in evening prayer: thanksgiving for the day (what was given), examination of the day (what was done well, what was sin), and surrender for the night (trusting God's protection). The Ignatian 'examen' formalizes this pattern, and the Compline office still uses Psalm 91 ('You will not fear the terror of the night') as the foundational psalm of the day's end.
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”
“I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.”
“You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.”
“He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
“If you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.”
The traditional 'Compline' prayer from the Christian monastic tradition is one of the most enduring: it includes Psalm 91 (God's protection), a confession of sin, and the prayer 'Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit' (Christ's own words on the cross). The simpler 'Now I lay me down to sleep' — taught to many children — captures the same trust: 'I pray the Lord my soul to keep.' Any honest prayer offered to God before sleep, even a short one, is biblical practice (Psalm 4:8).
Several Psalms specifically connect prayer with sleep: Psalm 4:8 ('In peace I will both lie down and sleep'), Psalm 3:5 ('I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me'), Psalm 91:5 ('You will not fear the terror of the night'), and Psalm 121:3-4 ('He who keeps you will not slumber'). Proverbs 3:24 promises that those who trust God will have 'sweet sleep.' Christ himself prayed in Gethsemane the night before his death, modeling that the hardest nights are met with prayer.
Pray three things: gratitude (recall the day's mercies, which calms an anxious heart), confession (release any sin or unresolved conflict to God so you don't carry it into the night), and surrender (commit yourself, your body, and your loved ones into God's keeping for the night). The pattern is ancient and reliable. Psalm 91 is the traditional 'protection psalm' for evening prayer.
Compline (from Latin completorium — 'completing') is the final prayer of the day in the monastic liturgical tradition, prayed just before sleep. The office dates to the 6th century and follows a consistent pattern: examination of conscience, a psalm of protection (most often Psalm 91), Scripture reading, the Song of Simeon ('Now you let your servant go in peace,' Luke 2:29-32), and the prayer 'Into your hands, Lord' (echoing Christ's last words on the cross). Many Christians not in monastic orders pray Compline as part of their evening practice.