Pray Continually

Texts:  Luke 18:1-8, 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah,

October 22, 2023

Paul writes to the Thessalonians: “Pray continually.” Another translation of the Bible reads “Pray without ceasing.” The literal translation from the Greek text is ”unceasingly pray.”  Never stop praying.

It’s part of a series of encouragements that Paul gives to the Thessalonians at the end of his letter when he writes, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

“Pray continually.” That’s a pretty concise verse, heh?  One little verse of only two words. A verse so small, yet it sounds so large to us.

How does a person pray continually and without ceasing? We might feel pretty good if we can pray once a day, or once a week. We know we should pray. We know we should do lots of things. We should floss regularly, drive slower, get more exercise, be more organized. “Should” never seems to carry much power in our lives. When it comes to prayer it often can be put aside because we have so many other things to do.

There is always one more phone call to make, one more project to do, one more errand to run, one more person to meet with, one more activity to go to, and soon all our time is taken up. Praying continually is no longer an issue because we don’t have the time.

How have others tried to pray continually? George Mueller is one of the great names in the Christian church. He ran an orphanage in England.  I have never run an orphanage but I imagine the energy, time, and responsibilities to be very demanding. When asked how much time he spent in prayer, his reply was, “Hours every day.  But I live in the spirit of prayer.  I pray as I walk and when I lie down and when I arise.  And the answers are always coming.”

Wow.  I want to live like that.

John Wesley, the preacher and founder of the Methodist tradition, used to spend two hours daily in prayer, and commonly said that “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”

Martin Luther said, “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day.  I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”

So much to do you have to spend three hours daily in prayer! For many today it is “I have so much to do, I can’t pray.”  No time. How do we get there?  It seems like such a tall order. Can it be done?  Unceasing prayer? What was Paul on when he wrote this?

It is amazing that for an age that is so spiritually hungry and thirsty, and will experiment with so many different things, people are so reluctant to take up the practice of prayer.

The Apostle Paul often encouraged people to constant, fervent, continuous prayer in his letters. “Pray in the Spirit at all times…” he wrote to the Ephesians. To the Colossians, “Devote yourselves to prayer…” J.B. Phillips translated that verse, “Always maintain the habit of prayer.” We pray continually when prayer becomes a habit.

Pray continually doesn’t mean pray every minute of every day.  It isn’t a time thing.  It is more about prayer becoming a habit.  Pray continually is making prayer an integral part of our living.  It becomes something we do all the time.

Years ago when the western United States was being settled, roads were often merely wagon tracks. These rough trails posed serious problems for those who journeyed on them in their wagons. On one of these winding paths was posted a sign which read: “Avoid this rut or you’ll be in it for the next 25 miles!”  A wagon would get stuck and could not get out. How do we get in a rut (in a positive sense) - a habit of prayer - so that we can pray continually for the next 25 years!?

One essential part of praying continually is faith.  Praying continually has something to do with faith.

Jesus told a parable one time about our need to pray always and not to lose heart. That’s what Luke tells us when he includes this parable of Jesus in his gospel.  Jesus told it to get his followers to pray always and not lose heart.

The parable goes like this: A widow kept coming to a judge who cared nothing about God asking him to give her justice against her opponent. She kept coming and coming and coming, and finally the judge said “enough already”, and granted her justice so that she would not wear him out.

Jesus pointed to that unjust judge saying that if he granted justice to the widow then will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?  Day and night meaning all day. It’s that part of Jesus’ teaching I want to emphasize.

Continually.  Always. We are told that Jesus told this parable about our need to pray always. Jesus says prayer is something that has to be done unceasingly.

But then he closes the parable with this: “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” As if to say, “does anyone have the faith to keep praying day and night?” It isn’t a question of God’s faithfulness.  It is a question of our faith to pray.

Every person in this room has needs, burdens we carry, things that weigh on our hearts. We have illnesses and health problems, marriages under stress, sons and daughters that need to come home, parts of us that need transformation, concerns and hopes. Do we have the faith that says, “I will take it to God and I will keep doing it.”  As Jesus wonders, “Are we willing to hang in there?”

It takes faith to pray.  It takes faith to believe God is there, that what we pray matters, especially in the hard things.

Maybe what we need to begin with is praying for faith to pray.  Maybe we need to pray for a hunger for God and his presence. A minister from Australia once was invited to share some words at the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church which is known for its dynamic ministry of prayer. Every Tuesday night they hold a Prayer Service where people line up outside the sanctuary an hour before the service starts just so they can get in. This man walked to the front of the church and said only this:

“You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the pastor or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting.”[1] Most churches don’t even have prayer meetings.

Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth?  Will he find faith in you?  In me?

Paul says “Pray continually,” but did Paul live by this? We see Paul doing many things other than praying. He traveled, wrote letters, he preached.  He was a tent-maker – his trade was to work with canvas – which took his time.

Jesus had regular times of prayer and communion with his Father. We read that it was his custom to arise early in the morning and go to a lonely place and pray. But he wasn’t always formally at prayer. He healed, he taught, he went to dinner parties, he attended weddings, he went on boat rides, he slept, and other things.

Perhaps prayer is more than merely being on our knees 24/7. We need to have formal times of quiet, intentional, conscious communion with the Lord where we open our Bibles and read, and then offer words of praise to the Lord, pour out our hearts to him, and pray for others and their needs.

But we also have jobs to go to, families to care for, laundry to do, tasks to be done, lives to be lived. Maybe it is in those very things, the daily tasks, that prayer can be practiced.

There is a classic book called The Practice of the Presence of God. It’s the recollections of a monk who was leader of a monastery in France many years ago.  One of the other monks was a very ordinary, simple man named Brother Lawrence.  The leader noticed how Brother Lawrence went about his daily life and said that “his prayer was simply an awareness of the presence of God…” in all he did throughout the day.[2]

Brother Lawrence said it was a delusion to think that the time set aside for prayer is different from other times. He said that we are praying as we are aware of God as we go about our daily tasks.

A saint from centuries past, Isaac the Syrian, said something that challenges me and expands my horizon of how God works and how we pray. He said that when the Holy Spirit lives in someone, that person cannot stop praying because the Spirit prays without ceasing in that person.  No matter if he or she is sleeping or awake, prayer is going on in the heart all the time.  A person may be eating or drinking, resting or working, prayer will be going up to God spontaneously from that person’s heart.[3]

If old Isaac was right, then prayer is more than just being conscious of prayer. Yes prayer is about stopping, coming to attention before God, pouring out our hearts before him, and opening our ears to him.  But it is also about keeping that spirit, keeping the awareness of God, being awake to him throughout the day.  That is the challenging part.

How do we do it?

One way that might help us is to keep a visible reminder of God before us to stir us to be aware of him.

When I was in the final days of seminary I was contemplating two different places that had asked me to come and be their pastor. I needed to fast and pray about this important decision, but it was during final exams and my time was consumed with studying. The two places were: Topeka and Philadelphia.  Yeah, I know.  The prospect of spending your life in those places is enough to bring anyone to their knees.

This is what I did.  I took a candle and placed it on my desk and kept it lit. That candle served as a reminder of the decision before me and of my need to listen for the Lord.  It focused me on God. I wasn’t praying in the sense that I was continually talking to God, but every time I looked at that candle I was reminded of my heart’s prayer before the Lord even as I was doing other things.

Keep a candle lit in a visible place in your home.  Or, a photo or Bible verse.  Having music playing is always a good way to keep our hearts in communion with the Lord.  Whatever tool we use it helps us remember God’s presence, to pray, and to be awake to him.

Another thing we can do is have mini-times of prayer throughout the day. Instead of one big prayer time we might want to have smaller times of prayer as the day goes on. In the Bible we see that morning, noon, and evening were times when people would stop to pray.[4]

Set the chime on the calendar program on your computer or the timer on your cell phone to go off at certain times, reminding you to pause and pray. Praying for brief times several times a day can be a way of praying continually.

Praying is not about time, but if you have five times of stopping to pray for two minutes every day that is 10 minutes right there. This can help us get into that “rut” of praying. Once we start to be as intentional about prayer as exercising, eating, taking our medication, or playing video games we will start to get into a groove.

There’s no special way to pray.  Just pray. The only real way to fail at prayer is to not show up.[5]

Sometimes I find I make prayer way more complicated that it needs to be. I need to remember that it’s not about my efforts or words being right. It’s just about being mindful of the Lord.” Prayer is about God praying in us and through us in ways beyond our comprehension.  Things of the Spirit always work that way.

There are no special techniques.  Yes, there are ways to pray that help us, but, as I said a couple weeks ago, prayer is not about technique.  It is about a relationship with a living God. It’s not always about words.  Martin Luther once said that when you pray, it is better for your heart to be without words, than your words to be without heart. We pray as we can, not as we can’t.

So pray continually.

Pray when you arise and when you go to bed.

Pray when you are about to eat a meal.

Pray for each member of your family, for your pastor, your nation, your community, your parents, your teacher, your neighbor.

Pray when you arrive at your place of work.  Pray throughout the day.

Pray when you can’t sleep at night.

Pray when you take your medicine or your pills.

Pray when you have a decision to make.  Pray when you don’t have anything particularly going on.

Pray in the classroom.  Pray while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Pray while folding the laundry.

Pray when you get into the car.  Pray when you get out of the car.

Pray at the computer.

Pray when you watch the news lifting up what you see to God.

Pray during the commercials of the program you watch.

Pray while you walk, run, or knit.

Pray while you cook.

Pray before church, during church, after church.

Pray continually.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, you are always more ready to hear us than we are to pray. Yet, your Spirit helps us to pray. Make prayer as much a part of our lives as eating, drinking, as breathing.

 [take a moment and speak to God, ask him to help you pray, or if no words come just rest knowing his Spirit lives in you.]

 Lord, make us a praying people.  Amen.

[1] Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Jim Cymbala, p.28

[2] p.50

[3] found in Prayer, Richard Foster, p.119

[4] Acts 3:1

[5] The Trappist Monk, Father Tom Keating, quoted by Brennan Manning in Ruthless Trust, p.130