Ceaseless Prayer

March 2008

For awhile I’ll write about prayer. I’ll consider myself warned by P.T. Forsyth that “no one ought to undertake writing about prayer who has not spent more toil in the practice of prayer than on its principle.” I consider myself warned. I tread with trembling where giants have trod. Ill-prepared, and with many “wonderings and wanderings” (Richard Foster), I claim but imperfection. My only hope hangs on God and my longing to grow in prayer while daring to nudge you, my readers, in the same direction. Prayer, it’s claimed, is the heart’s true home (Foster). It is where we hang our hats of faith, hope, and love. It’s entering the Holy Presence daring to ask, and hoping to be answered. It is where we come back to as we sojourn in the land of our and our neighbor’s brokenness.

Not to be outdone, I’ve a warning for you.  These writings on prayer are guaranteed not to expand your “Jabezesque” land mass or enlarge your retirement portfolio. I only vow that you’ll know how to become a practicing Christian by practicing prayer. I also make no claim to teach you how to pray because we only learn to pray by praying, not by reading or writing articles on prayer. If you are like 76% of Americans who pray you already suspect so.

By the way, why don’t you put this and future articles in the hands of some of your college or other friends? Roughly 75% of them discuss religion, find religion personally helpful, allow religion to form their identity, and report that their college teachers never encourage discussions on religion or spiritual issues. 

Prayer is conversation with God. Broadly speaking, prayer describes our habitual attitude toward and our relationship with God. It’s living in the presence of God. It’s what Paul means by “pray without ceasing.”

In the narrow sense prayer is our acts of praying or actual prayer. It’s the different ways we pray (set or spontaneous), the different kinds of prayer (thanksgiving or petition), and the different contexts of prayer (private or public). These will also be topics as this series progresses. Initially I’ll focus on the broad sense of prayer.

Here is what I mean by prayer in the broad sense. Paul encourages the Christians of his day (Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17) to “pray without ceasing and in everything.” Objections of impossibility are legion. I’ve indulged myself in some. However, here is the naked truth about ceaseless and everything praying. It’s a word from God; it’s a command; it’s given to the church; it’s non-negotiable; it’s good; it’s the right thing to do; it’s possible; it’s achievable; it’s what Christians aspire to do; it’s inspiration for life transformation; it’s praying for everything, even for bread at midnight, even every action we perform; it’s praying for everyone we encounter; it’s begging for mercy for ourselves, for others; it’s a life; it is the constant underground current, the refreshing waters where the Holy Spirit harmonizes our groaning with the cosmos’ groaning to create the “Unfinished Symphony” of our lives in the Kingdom of God.

Whatever the dear apostle meant he meant it despite our weak objections.

As a New Testament term, without ceasing (Greek adialiptos, adverb) is used in several instances. It can mean without interruption, unceasingly, or constantly. The adverb modified verbs to make them continuous and repeated actions. For example, adialiptos describes someone who pays the necessary taxes he owes without interruption. Another use is when an official performs his duty or ministry continually. An interesting use is when a person is sick and has constantly and unstoppable fits of coughing. It can describe repeated military attacks or the continual failing of a military effort. Finally, adialiptos indicates the regular and consistent production of fruit. The adverb describes the action of praying that a non-stop attitude of being and living in the presence of God produces. That is worth aspiring to and being inspired about! Spiritual growth can be defined largely in terms of growth in prayer. This is walking with the Master.

Ceaseless praying or living prayerfully cannot be an isolated habit. Jesus lived a prayerful life which included solitude, fasting, worship, and meditating. As Baptists we see prayer and Bible study as conjoined twins. And so they are. However, the true biblical twins are prayer and fasting. When prayer marries other disciplines, spiritual progress happens.

Our evangelical heroes Andrew Murray, David Brainerd, Charles Finney, Billy Graham, and others are praised for their exceptional prayer lives and Bible studies. What is little known is that their effective praying was part of the “totality of the spiritual disciplines which they carefully practiced” (Dallas Willard). The practice of prayer never thrives in isolation.

When Paul commands Christians to pray, he uses the more comprehensive term for prayer. This term can include other words for prayer like petition, thanksgiving, praise, confession, intercession, and others.  Let’s put the words together again: pray in every way you know all the time. Prayer centers our lives in God and in what God is about in His world.

Praying without ceasing is training to live in the presence of God. It’s carrying an ongoing conversation with God. As we do, we encounter the living and loving God who deigns to meet us in our loving. As Dallas Willard says “… and love will keep our minds directed toward him as the magnet pulls the needle of the compass… Constant prayer will only ‘burden’ us as wings burden the bird in flight.” I wish you a journey into the practice of prayer full of learning and practicing a ceaseless conversation with God. May prayer be the air you breathe and the breath you exhale!

Send this Column to a Friend






Past Columns

Return to top