“Pray without ceasing” - 1 Thessalonians 5:17
How often do you pray? Every morning? Every night? In times of great need?
These are all certainly great times to pray. But the apostle Paul instructs us to go a step further. He tells us to “pray without ceasing” or as the NIV puts it, to “pray continually.”
We usually tend to think of prayers as sequences of words directed to God in either thought or speech. But in reality this is only a single type of prayer.
Jesus reminds us that “our father knows what we need before we ask” (Matt 6:8). Therefore, in the context of prayer it is not always necessary to use words. In fact, every action we take can be considered a type of prayer offered up to God.
We are not only communicating with God when we set aside specific time to pray, we are in constant communication with God during every moment of every day. Or perhaps to put it more accurately, God is in constant communication with us. We tend not to notice His presence simply because we forget to look.
Searching for God’s presence in all things is the first step toward unceasing prayer.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. - Psalm 19:1
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