I seriously doubt that anyone can actually pray all of the time without ever stopping. The only way that can happen is to redefine prayer from actually talking to God to thinking about talking to God. I am convinced that real serious prayer requires focus and concentration. If we think of praying without ceasing as non-stop praying, we run the danger of never actually praying at all. When we think we have never stopped praying, we probably have never actually started! I think the call to pray without ceasing is closer to what Jesus taught his disciples. He told them “to pray and not give up” (Lk 18:1). This kind of praying is not necessarily 24/7. But it is tenacious. It keeps coming back to the Father again and again with the same concern as long as that concern seems unresolved. The opposite is to pray and quit. A quest for instant gratification will always be in conflict with prayer. Asking once, forgetting about it, and going on to something else is not Jesus’ idea of prayer. For a very good reason! Our goal in praying maybe to get what we want. God’s goal is to get us! To get us to know him better, to trust him more, to obey him more completely, to love him more deeply! Prayer is not about what we want and how to get God to give it to us. Prayer is about knowing the God who already knows our needs, discovering His will, and aligning ourselves with that. Prayer is about relying on Him 24/7.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 21:58:46 +0000