“Pray without ceasing” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17
How does anyone do that??? This surely can’t mean spending every moment of your life in totally focused prayer. After all, Scripture commands us to work, to worship, to fellowship with other believers, to make disciples, to love our families, and much more. Physically, we must sleep and eat sometimes. So this can’t be telling us to be on our knees in our prayer rooms 24×7. And yet, we are to pray without ceasing. How?
We can be in a prayerful posture as we work, worship, fellowship, etc. We can develop a deeper awareness of God’s constant presence and routinely talk to God as we go through our busy days. It may be helpful to think about prayer like this… Your devoted, focused times of prayer are like phone calls or video chats with your beloved Father in Heaven. The rest of the time, imagine yourself on an ongoing text chat with your Father. As things happen throughout the day or pop into your mind, you quickly text those thanksgivings and petitions to your Father. Your conversation with Him never truly ends, though you focus on people, work, or other activities throughout the day.
That’s certainly an imperfect illustration, but hopefully communicates the idea that prayer doesn’t have to be an on/off activity. It can be something that’s always on but can have more or less of your attention depending on the situation. What do you think? Feel free to share in the comments anything that helps you “pray with ceasing”? #FollowJesus