Pray Without Ceasing

"Pray Without Ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

   That is a mysterious commandment in the Bible. This commandment is seemingly impracticable. If God wants us to pray occasionally or on specially allotted times and seasons we can understand and implement the commandment. But not at appointed times, the Lord wants us to pray always, continually and without ceasing.

   How is it possible? All of us have some job or business or some other activity we have to undertake and be involved in. In the Bible we see many warriors of faith and of prayer. We see the prophet Daniel praying with his windows opened towards Jerusalem thrice a day. We see Moses praying to God on the Mount Sinai for forty days and then coming down. He even prayed everyday in the Tent of Testimony. We see our precious Lord ministering the Word to multitudes during the day time and praying to His Father throughout the night on the Mount Olivet. All of them were praying on specially appointed timings.

   But in our present text the Lord is commanding us to pray without ceasing, without the break of single moment. Does the Lord really mean it? If He really means it, how does He expect us to fulfil the commandment? There must be some way to fulfil the seemingly impossible commandment – otherwise the Lord wouldn't ask us to do it.

   I would like to remind you here that we are capable of paying attention to number of issues at the same time. Let's suppose we are listening to the melodious music of an orchestra. We are listening to the singer, rhythm played by the drummer, the violin, the guitar and many other instruments. We enjoy all the instruments. Our ears have capacity to receive the different acoustic signals and convey all of them to the brain, and our mind has capacity to enjoy the performance of all the musicians simultaneously. And while we're listening to the music concentrating on different sounds at the same time, suddenly a dog barks outside the hall and you know it! How many directions can your mind project it's attention at given moment? Difficult to say!

   We must use this capability of our mind to enhance our prayer life. We can concentrate on more than issue at the same time! So we have to divide our mind into two main sections. Then we must dedicate once section totally to engage in communication with God. The other section can be used for our worldly affairs such as our work at office, our business, our studies and even our family life. At any given moment whatever be the work we're engaged in, one section of mind must be constantly talking to God and listening to Him!

   This is a glorious experience! And this is the solution to most of the problems in your spiritual life. If you practice such an unceasing prayer life, it will be very difficult for the devil to lead you into sin. At the most he can tempt you , but he cannot make you fall in sin if you pray without ceasing.

   In the present generation, in our busy world with all our hectic schedule, this is the only way we can work out our salvation and live holy till our Lord returns! May God help you to pray without ceasing. God bless you.