1 Thessalonians 5
16Rejoice always; 17pray without ceasing; 18in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NASB)
The Daily DAVEotional
I don’t know about you but even though I grew up going to church, as a kid, I was intimidated by prayer. To me, praying seemed like an exercise in giving an ornate speech.
I never really witnessed people praying in normal, everyday language. Instead, prayer always seemed to be a well-prepared, dramatic reading from up front.
As an example, I was recently at a breakfast for the National Day of Prayer. A police chaplain was asked to give the opening prayer. It was a wonderful prayer, but the entire prayer sounded like a carefully-crafted poem or work of prose rather than off the cuff thoughts you might share if you were conversing with your friend.
My point is NOT to critique the professionally sounding prayers. I actually love hearing people who have given great thought to what they want to say and pray to God. I also think there is great value in thinking deeply and writing out exactly what you want to say to God. I heartily encourage this practice.
However, if that is our only example of what prayer is, and it’s what I mostly heard growing up when I went to church, it can make prayer intimidating for those who haven’t spent much personal time in conversing with the Almighty.
My contention is that while prayer CAN BE an ornate, well-crafted poetic expression to God, it doesn’t have to be.
In these few short verses from 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul gives a number of admonitions as he closes out his letter.
Sandwiched in between the exhortations to “rejoice always” and “in everything give thanks”, Paul commends his audience to “pray without ceasing.”
Have you ever thought of what that means?
If praying is the ornate prayer that I usually heard on Sunday mornings or the pre-planned, written out oration from the National Prayer breakfast, then most everyday people might mistakenly think that prayer doesn’t apply to them.
After all, if that is what prayer is, how can one possibly do that “without ceasing.” One would literally be walking around 24/7 trying to create poetic speeches directed toward God. We would all become full-time, amateur psalmists.
Fortunately, I don’t think that is what Paul means when he commands us to “pray without ceasing.”
What does it mean then?
It means that your thinking becomes a praying process and your praying becomes a thinking process.
Prayer does not have to be a spoken verbal speech that others hear. Prayer can be a thought that is directed toward God, or an acknowledgement that God is present, or an invitation for God to provide wisdom and clarity.
A great example of this is found in Nehemiah 2. Nehemiah is asked a question by the king and Nehemiah, before responding, PRAYS to God. I wrote about this passage in my blog post, “The Shortest (Non) Prayer in the Bible.”
Clearly in that moment, Nehemiah didn’t pause and go through a formal prayer process while the king was waiting for him to respond to his request. Instead, the prayer was internal and instantaneous – an invitation for God to provide wisdom and favor in the stressful situation in which Nehemiah found himself.
Praying without ceasing means that no matter what I’m doing, I’m aware of God’s presence in my life. It means that I’m acknowledging God’s sovereignty in my life. It means that I’m aware that God has endowed me with the mind of Christ, enabling me to think and reason in a way that honors Him. And most of all, it means that I’m inviting Him into my inner thought chamber and decision-making process.
Ultimately, it means that I’m living in my identity – acknowledging that I am His child, that He’s with me, and that He has pre-eminence in my life.
Praying without ceasing does not mean we are permanently relegated to a pew in a church somewhere offering endless petitions towards an altar placed in front of a stain-glassed window. Instead, praying without ceasing means that my whole life, as much as possible, is oriented around the reality that God is with me and I am in a constant state of awareness and acknowledgment of that fact – whether I am in a church or not, whether I’m attending a religious event or just going about my normal, everyday routine.
Reflection
What has been your experience with prayer?
Do you find prayer difficult or easy? What are the factors that led you to your response?
What do you think it means to “pray without ceasing”?
What are some things you can do to implement Paul’s command to “pray without ceasing?” What specific action steps can you take?
Spiritual Practice
Steve Douglass was the second president of Cru. He shared in a talk one time about an exercise that he did to train his mind to constantly be aware of God’s presence in his life.
He set his watch alarm to beep at regular intervals (every few minutes maybe….I can’t remember the exact frequency). Every time the watch would beep, it would remind him to think about and acknowledge God. That simple activity trained him to always be aware of God no matter what was happening around him.
Think about setting an alarm on your phone or watch to go off at regular intervals. When it goes off, simply acknowledge and think about God. This is one step to begin to train yourself to “pray without ceasing.”
Photo by Arina Krasnikova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-praying-in-church-5417912/
The Lowedown 