Without Ceasing

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

"Pray without ceasing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of people wrestle with that seemingly simple command.

How am I supposed to do that?

Does he mean literally non-stop?

What kind of prayer is that? You can’t spend the whole day kneeling with your eyes shut…

I’ve tried to, but I just get so distracted!

A few people have shared about their success and the kind of ongoing conversation they have with the Lord throughout the day. Most people, though, try, fail, get discouraged, and decide “praying without ceasing” is unrealistic, impractical, and out of reach.

One morning recently, I dropped Noah off at daycare, and two things happened the instant I stepped out of the building. They happened so unintentionally and so quickly that I might have missed them, but for whatever reason I noticed. First, the fingers on my right hand twitched, preparing to stretch out to grab something. Then, in the same split-second, they froze and relaxed again, as my body alerted my brain: The thing you’re reaching for isn’t there. Your phone isn’t in your back pocket.

I knew that I pulled my phone out sometimes after I dropped her off. I didn’t know, until that moment, just how reflexively and involuntarily I do it. I was acting on pure auto-pilot. My body knew just what to do. I’ve trained it well, and now that’s become a deeply ingrained part of my daily life.

That morning, when I noticed just how attuned my body was to my iPhone—without any conscious thought involved at all!—I realized that we know how to pray “without ceasing.” We know what that looks like, and we’re capable of it. We do it all the time. We bow our heads to our screens and give our attention and engagement to distractions, entertainment, and shopping without ceasing. We’ve trained our hands to reach for the phone at the first opportunity. Our bodies are keeping track of the thing, alerting us when its out of reach. It is a constant in our lives.

What would it take to make prayer as constant, as deeply ingrained a part of your daily life? How can you train yourself to pray reflexively, at the first opportunity? Maybe you won't suddenly be praying without ceasing, but you might start praying more often.

That’s my hope with a lot of my prayer habits, that they would train me to pray more. That’s the reason for the alarms on my phone telling me to stop and pray, the purple wristband I’m wearing in Lent reminding me to “invite the Spirit,” for stretching out my handwashing with the Lord’s Prayer. (I know that one’s doing something, because now I’ll catch myself praying it when I brush my teeth. I’m like Pavlov’s dogs, drooling every time the bell rings, only I start muttering “Our Father…” every time I hear a sink running.)

Training your body to reach for the phone (and your fingers to unlock it and open an app) takes time and repetition. Training yourself to pray more is no different. It will take a little while for you to get into a new rhythm. And forming new habits always takes intentionality and effort on the front end. Praying “without ceasing” will be that way, too. It won’t happen by accident, and it will take some doing to get this plane off the ground.

But what can you start doing today, to begin training your heart and your mind and begin inserting a new time of prayer, a new way of connecting with God, into your life?

Listen to this week's devotional right here: