But
in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we are exhorted by Paul the Apostle to pray
without ceasing. Some
commentators take this passage to mean to pray with perseverance. But
I would rather take it to mean praying 24 hours a day, every minute
of those hours and every second of those minutes.
How
Can We Pray Continuously?
First
of all if your definition of prayer is asking favors from God, as
some people understand by their practice of prayer, for they pray
only when they think they need something from God, then there is no
reason to pray continuously because you cannot keep on asking favors
from God. There comes a time when you think you do not need favors
from God and so you stop praying. You may simply say, There is
nothing I have to pray for and so I stopped praying.
But
real prayer is simply conversation with God. Or we can add an
adjective. Prayer is a loving
conversation with God. In this sense we can always pray for we can
carry on a loving conversation with God, even when we are asleep.
We
can mentally hold a loving conversation with God about the things
that we are doing. Usually we do self-talk. We talk things over in
our mind. For example when we wake up in the morning we ask
ourselves, What am I going to do today? Such talk can be modified so
that instead of asking ourselves, we ask God. God, what shall I do
today?
Then
there arises this question: Does God hear our question and if he
does, does he answer? How can we be certain about his answer? We
might just be imagining about his answer?
The
fact is that God knows our thinking, as he knows everything that
happens in and around us. Even before a thought comes into our mind
he knows that we will think about that thought. And what we think we
imagine is his answer is indeed his answer if we follow certain
guidelines.
Guidelines
for Continuous Prayer
The first requirement for continuous prayer is a desire
to know more about God and to know him more intimately and putting
that desire into action. This means that we read and study more and
more his words in the Scriptures. This act of reading and studying is
already praying if we constantly talk to him about what we read and
study. If we do this not only will we know more about God, we will
also know him more intimately. We will know his thoughts and
feelings, as it were.
The second requirement for continuous prayer is the
practice of moments of silence with him, just to be with him in
silence. In our relationships with human beings we cannot keep on
talking with them. There are moments when we are just with them,
listening to them. The same can be said of God. There are moments
when we just need to be with God in silence, listening to him.
The third requirement is developing the attitude of
gratefulness to God. We thank God for everything and for all the time
he gives us. Gratitude cements our relationship with God. This deep
seated attitude of gratefulness is prayer of the highest kind and it
can be expressed while we are sleeping. We sleep being grateful to
God.
If we practice this kind of prayer the time will come
when we will keep on listening to God amidst all our activities and
the Spirit will describe us as walking with God as Enoch walked with
God. The preceding sentence is a repetition of what I wrote before.
But it is worth repeating to encourage us to perform the spirituality
and practice of continuous prayer.
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:
for
your spiritual growth
for
your health
for
learning about the new trends around us
for
earning some income from the Internet
Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE.
To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this
website http://bit.ly/anewchrist.
To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this
website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth.
I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much
from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.
