3 Life-Changing Ways to Pray Without Ceasing

how we can hear from Him through the power of prayer. Today, I want to talk to you about a verse in the Bible. It's a very short verse. It's the one you've probably heard before, and it is all about prayer. It's First Thessalonians, chapter five, verse seventeen. In the New International Version, it says pray continually. In the New Living Translation, it says never stop praying. In the English Standard version. This might be the version that you're most used to

hearing this verse, It says, pray without ceasing. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church to instruct believers on how to conduct themselves as children of God as they wait on the return of Christ and all that he tells them to do. In this letter we find this short, simple verse on how they and we should pray. We are called to pray without ceasing. Now, I know that can bring up a lot of questions like, well, one, is it possible to pray without ceasing? And if so,

how does one actually pray without ceasing? How can I pray all the time? I have things to do, and bills to pay, and kids to take care of and work that has to be done. I just can't pray all the time. And if you feel that God wouldn't call us to do something that He hasn't equipped us to do or that wasn't possible for us to do, you're correct. So the idea of praying without ceasing shows that prayer it's not about location or formalities. It's just

a continual conversation with God. The call to pray without ceasing implies that prayer is more than closing our and saying some words, but it's about connecting with the God of the universe at all times. Praying without ceasing does not mean that your every thought or word is praying to God. Obviously, I'm talking to you right now, and I'm not in a traditional form of praying to God right now. Praying without ceasing means that we just don't stop the practice of praying. I want you to think

of a runner. They don't run every waking minute of every day, but there's still a runner because they practice running every day or every few days. They do it continually, and they don't stop. The same is true for us as believers. We are expected to pray. We are expected to continually be in communication with God. We are called to consistently practice the discipline of prayer. I love this quote from Matthew Henry about what it means to pray

without ceasing. He says, the meaning is not that men should do nothing but pray, but that nothing else we do should hinder prayer in its proper season. Prayer will help forward, not hinder all other lawful business and every good work. What we further learn is that we're not supposed to just be in our prayer closet twenty four seven three sixty five always praying. What good will we be to our families in the world if we did that?

But we are to continually pray so that we are empowered in the work that God has called us to do in our families, in our church, in our communities, in our own lives. When we pray without ceasing, it's not about the act of prayer. It's about a heart to pray anywhere, any way, about any thing. And those are the three things that I want to break down to you today about how we can actually and practically pray without ceasing. First, let's talk about praying anywhere. We

can pray anywhere because God is everywhere. If we want to pray without ceasing, we have to remember that God is always with us. Prayer again, is our communication and access to God. Right. So it's not like we have to be in a prayer clause be at church, or we have to follow all these formalities to pray, because we can connect with God anywhere because He is everywhere. The other day, my son came to me and he said, Mommy, if I open my eyes when I pray, can God

still hear me? And I was so pleased to let him know. Yes, even if you pray with your eyes open, God can still hear your prayers, because prayer, again, is not about the formalities. It's not about where we are. It's about where God is and our ability to connect with Him everywhere, and He is always with us, which means we can always pray. Psalm one thirty nine, verses seven through ten says, where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I

ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. The Psalmist understands that we can pray anywhere. If you're washing dishes in the evening as your family gets ready for bed, if you're waiting in the carpool line, if you're stuck in traffic, if you're in a hospital bed laying on your back.

God is there. And if he's there, that means that we can pray to him. We can ask him for help, we can ask him for guidance. We can just simply talk to him and thank him for being him wherever we are. Praying without ceasing means praying anywhere. It means recognizing that God is always with us, and when we have that in the forefront of our minds, that God is that friend that's always beside us, never leaving us, even if we're walking through the valley of the Shadow

of Death. That he's with us, and that means we can always talk to him. We have someone we can always commune with, and that we're never alone when we pray. Next, if we want to pray without ceasing, we have to remember that we can pray any way. This means that we can pray in any circumstance. It doesn't have to be in a church, but just the simple fact that

we don't give up on praying. We talked about this before, especially in the second episode of the Teacher Us to Pray podcast, where we talked about actually how Jesus teaches us to pray and that prayer isn't just about getting anything you want, but it's about changing our heart. When I say pray it anyway, I mean don't quit on praying. We have an entire episode dedicated to why should I pray if God already knows. Be sure to go back and check out that episode. But essentially, prayer again is

about us growing up our spiritual muscle. It's about growing in our relationship with God. When we feel like we're facing a hard situation, an impossible situation, that's not when we say, oh, I'm not going to pray now. That's when we lean in. That's when we say, oh, I'm especially going to pray now. It's reminding ourselves that yes, we're weak and we can't do it, but God can do anything. When you're in doubt, pray anyway. When you're frustrated and you don't know what to do, pray anyway.

When you want to give up and you want to let go, pray any way, don't give up on prayer again. Prayer is not about getting what we want. It's about changing our hearts in the process. Sometimes we will get what we want and sometimes we won't, but we will always be changed for the better when we decide to not give up on prayer and pray anyway last we want to pray about anything. If we want to be able to pray continually, we're gonna have to make our

prayers very natural and conversational with God. And this means that we can pray to God about anything. We don't have to feel insecure about bringing something to God, one because he already knows, and two because there's no condemnation in Christ for those who place their faith in him. We don't have to feel insecure or like we're not good enough to pray. God wants to talk to us. He wants us to enter his presence through prayer. He wants us to cast our cares on him. The Bible

tells us to do that. There's nothing too big that he can't handle. We need to have the confidence to approach his throne with prayer because he can handle whatever comes your way. I love Philippians four, verses six and seven that says do not worry about anything. Instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard

your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Again, I want to reiterate the first part of that verse that says don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything everything. Sometimes we feel like, oh, this is too small. God has bigger issues, bigger things that he can be worried about. But God cares even about the seemingly little things to us. Because He cares about us, we can't get caught into thinking that, oh, this is too big for me to pray about, or this is too small for me to

pray about. The Bible doesn't say only pray about the big things, only pray about the small things. It says, pray about everything, pray about everything. Listen, If we really take this approach to prayer and get real with God and pray with Him about everything, we can pray continually because trust me, we will not run out of things to say. I want to encourage you to keep your

traditional prayer time. Maybe you pray in the mornings when you get up, or maybe you pray in the evenings before you go to bed, or maybe you pray in the car with your kids is your drive to school. Keep those traditional prayer times. But I also want to encourage you to have conversational prayer times. Times where you're praying and it just wasn't planned. You're in the grocery store and you see someone that looks sad, and you

just say a little prayer for him. Or maybe you just got off the phone with your husband and you notice a sense of discouragement his voice, so you just say a little prayer right there for him. Or maybe you're talking to a friend and she's making a very important decision and you say, can I just pray with you really quickly. I want you to be a little more spontaneous with your prayer this week. I want to

challenge you with that. I want you to get creative about praying during times you wouldn't normally think to pray in the carpool line. And I want to encourage you that listen, it doesn't have to be these long prayers, just a quick Oh Lord, bless her, Oh Lord, help me make this decision. Oh Holy Spirit, lead me in this. Just recognizing that God is with you, that you can pray to him anywhere. Because of that, you can pray to Him about anything, and that we should pray to

him any way. Again, when we pray without ceasing. It's not about the acts of prayer, but cultivating a heart to pray anywhere, any way and about anything. It is my hope that today's episode has provided you with insight

and helpful tips on how you can pray. We have so much more to talk about when it comes to prayer, so I hope that if you were encouraged by today's episode, you'll share it with a friend and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes of the Teach Us to Pray podcast or will continue to learn how, just like breathing, where can become a natural, consistent, and life giving part

of our everyday lives. Until then, be sure to connect with me at Belovedwomen dot org or download the Beloved Women app available from the app and Google play stores, and check out the show notes to download my free five day Prayer Guy. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today. God bless you and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

McGarvey for their production and editing on this episode. You can find more podcasts like this over at lifeaudio dot com.