Pray Without Ceasing ???

The apostle Paul admonishes us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “Pray without ceasing!” How in the world do we do this? I don’t believe that he meant to constantly mumble prayers every second or even to think prayers about what we want in every circumstance.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Lots of people pray for me; and I have never been any worse for it. The only valid argument against the practice is that God knows his own business without any prompting.”

Why do some view prayer as a futile thing? They grant God (if they recognize Him at all) the intelligence to run His universe without any prompting, and also believe it reasonable that no amount of begging or beseeching is going to make Him alter His plans.

Prayer must be something deeper and finer than telling God what He can do and what He should do. I have come to see prayer as ACKNOWLEDGMENT – a recognition of the eternity of the goodness of God, here and now.

Whenever I see or hear the verb “pray” I substitute in its place “acknowledge”; and for the noun “prayer” I substitute “acknowledgment”.

I change Paul’s “Pray without ceasing” to “Acknowledge without ceasing.”

Jesus prayed the unceasing acknowledgment of the reality of God’s good nature when He said, “It is done,” before the senses could see that any change had taken place. Again He often said, “Thank you, Father,” knowing that the finished works already existed although unseen.

“Whatever things you desire when you pray, believe (acknowledge) that you receive [present tense] them and you shall have them” Again we see the acknowledgment of the finished thing which is given to us before we ask, and while we are yet speaking. This would all be impossible if the thing or desire didn’t already exist in the Father’s reality.

Praying without ceasing IS a present possibility IF it is a constant open acknowledgment that “all is well” because God can and does run His universe without help or even suggestion. The great use and truly ONLY functional use of prayer is that it brings us into line with the FACTS of God’s eternal goodness. We get into and stay into the universal rhythm of it and are carried on into our expression of peace and joy.

When a person comes to recognize and acknowledge in prayer an opportunity of allying himself with God, he understands how “all things are possible with God,” and if possible with God, possible also to those of us in a living union with Christ (even though we don’t always see how or understand it).

Jesus said He came “that your joy might be full.” And He said to pray. This seems to indicate that prayer should be a joyful acknowledgment of good and not a mournful beseeching and begging. All the effort to make God see how needy your case is will not alter the fact that you have Jesus’ lesson to learn from the lilies and the ravens who “let” things come into expression and don’t constantly worry and complain about the lack of them.

When you stop to think about it, any prayer that beseeches and begs God to do a thing is the wrong kind of acknowledgment. It says in a way that the Creator has forgotten or overlooked something needful of accomplishment. The more we beg God to be good to us, the more we show forth our lack of true understanding of His eternal nature of Fatherly care and goodness.

God has a GOOD plan for your life. If you must, make any mention of specific need in your prayer very passing and momentary. Play it down to a minimum. THEN accentuate the prayer of acknowledgment – PRAISE AND THANKFULNESS FOR THE ETERNAL, HERE AND NOW, GOODNESS OF GOD.

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