Lyrics
I have a Savior, He's pleading in glory,
A dear, loving Savior, though earth-friends be few;
And now He is watching in tenderness o'er me,
But O, that my Savior were your Savior, too!
For you I am praying,
For you I am praying,
For you I am praying,
I'm praying for you.
I have a Father; to me He has given
A hope for eternity, blessed and true;
And soon will He call me to meet Him in heaven,
But O, that He'd let me bring you with me, too!
I have a robe, 'tis resplendent in whiteness,
Awaiting in glory my wondering view;
O, when I receive it all shining in brightness,
Dear friend, could I see you receiving one, too!
When He has found you, tell others the story,
That my loving Savior is your Savior, too;
Then pray that your Savior may bring them to glory,
And prayer will be answered — 'twas answered for you!
Public domain hymn text and tune. Words by Samuel O'Malley Cluff; music by Ira D. Sankey, composed 1874.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Samuel O'Malley Cluff, a Dublin-educated Irish clergyman who later left the Church of Ireland to join the Plymouth Brethren, wrote the text of "I Am Praying for You" some years before it became widely known, publishing it among a set of hymn-poems distributed as leaflets. It was, by all accounts, only a modest, locally circulated piece of writing until an American composer came across it by chance.
Ira D. Sankey, the singer and song leader who worked alongside D. L. Moody, made his first visit to Ireland in 1874. There he found Cluff's words printed on a leaflet and, struck by them, set them to a tune he called INTERCESSION — only the second hymn tune he had ever composed. The pairing was published the following year in Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs No. 1, the collection Sankey co-edited with Philip P. Bliss, and it became especially popular after Sankey used it in evangelistic meetings in London not long after.
The hymn is built as a direct, personal address — not a general statement about God's love, but one believer speaking straight to a particular friend, naming a Savior, a Father, and a heavenly robe the singer already possesses, each time turning the thought toward the one still without it: "but O, that my Savior were your Savior, too."
Cluff, who went on to write over a thousand hymns across his lifetime, died in 1910 in Ireland — but this particular text, found on a leaflet by a visiting American composer, outlasted nearly all the rest of his output, still sung as one of the standard hymns of personal intercessory prayer.
