Redefining Prayer

Pray without ceasing.- 1 Thessalonians 5:17

I spent many years wondering how, exactly, to follow the instructions of this particular verse. I had been told that prayer was asking God for things. It was a petition to our Father to act in a situation that was beyond my own capabilities to address. I was to come to God with a need, ask for it to be met, thank Him and wait. End of story.

How do you do that without ceasing?

For a while, I held the philosophy that Paul was simply referring to the fact that there are so many needs, for so many people, that we could pray non-stop about them. This is certainly true, but God has a great company of intercessors who provide a covering of prayer for people. Many intercessors have experienced those times when the Holy Spirit fills the heart with a great burden for someone, perhaps even a stranger. It is not simply the quantity of prayer I believe Paul is talking about.

As a "solution", I adopted a popular application among Pentecostals and Charismatics. The idea is that to pray without ceasing I was supposed to be constantly muttering something in my "prayer language" whenever I wasn't doing something else. This made a certain amount of sense, and practicing it certainly does maintain a sense of presence with God. Still, it is relying on a more or less mechanical action to fulfill the edict to pray without ceasing.

As I continued to wrestle with the idea that I was missing something, I looked to the life of Jesus (always a good idea) for an answer in His approach to prayer. First, I looked at His example of how to pray that is known as The Lord's Prayer (though some call it the Disciple's Prayer instead).

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Matthew 6:9-13

Simple and straightforward, this is indeed the perfect model for prayer. But, I ran into something of a conundrum when I read the verses leading up to this perfect prayer. Jesus warns against praying in a manner that draws attention to you. He warns against vain repetition and a multitude of words. Back to 1 Thess. 5:17, I had to wonder how to pray without ceasing and not be repetitive or use a lot of words as a result. I knew there was more to prayer than I understood. Or less. perhaps?

Jesus had a habit of spending all night in prayer (Lk. 6:12). Why would someone who was the fullness of God in bodily form (Col. 2:9) need to pray all night? He already knew the needs of those who would come to Him for help. There was no limit to His capacity to perform miracles, except the lack of faith in others. An obvious answer is that He was providing an example for us to follow. A less obvious answer is that though He was God incarnate, Jesus still had the limitations of living in a flesh and blood body, and so needed time with His Father to overcome those limitations, just as we do. Jesus may have spent the entire night making specific petitions for each and every person He was going to minister to the next day. But even that might only take a few hours. What was really going on was He was simply focused on the Father, and abiding in His presence. What Jesus possessed was a state of mind that was constantly focused on His Father, regardless of what else was going on. It was like a DSL connection to God: always on, always available to exchange information, even if the "computer" is being used in some other way.

Things really fell into place when I looked at 1 Thess. 5:17 in light of the rest of the sentence the verse numbers break up.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thess. 5:16-18

The instruction to pray without ceasing is placed in the middle of instructions to rejoice and give thanks. If Paul intended a purely "mechanical" process of what we say to or ask of God, this passage becomes impossible to follow. On the other hand, if you realize Paul is talking about a state of mind, a way of life, then it makes a great deal of sense. Prayer is not simply asking God for something. It is a state of consciousness, a whole attitude of how you go about life. Prayer in this passage, and in the Lord's Prayer, is intertwined with worship and thanksgiving. The act of petitioning God is just one aspect of prayer. Jesus could pray all night because consciously focusing on being in His Father's presence made any discomfort or lack of sleep no great price to pay for intimacy with the One He loved most. If you've ever truly been "in love" you know that just being in the presence of your beloved gives a sense of joy and satisfaction that is incomparable. Prayer is being in the presence of God, and from there we can ask Him to work in our lives or the lives of others. Or we can simply tell Him we love Him. Or just rest in His presence. So, let me offer my definition of prayer, in hopes that if you are struggling with some of the same issues I've mentioned here, you might find a place of rest.

Prayer is consciously focusing on our heavenly Father.

See how easy it is to pray without ceasing? Develop the habit of always focusing your thoughts on God. You'll find it gets easier the more you do it. Even if you are busy talking with someone, or typing up that proposal at work, or working on your car, you can pray by getting God involved in what you are doing, simply by directing your thoughts toward Him. By making God the center of focus of your thought life, you will find that rejoicing always and giving thanks in everything become a matter of habit as well. When you reach that point, you'll find yourself asking God to bless others more than you ask things for yourself. That is the life of an intercessor. Welcome!