On any given day we are going to receive phone calls, messages, or verbal requests from people asking us to pray for certain situations. These situations may be about sickness, travel, a time of need, conferences, decisions, and the list could go on and on. All of this is good and we should honor these requests and talk with the Lord concerning any and all needs.
What about you? How often do you talk to the Lord? I have always been taught that we should pray without ceasing or continually. In fact we are told this in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 by the Apostle Paul in his letter of encouragement to the Christians at Thessalonica. Those Christians were going through the same trials we are today because they lived in a time when their society was hostile toward Christian values.
Many pray in the morning and give praise to the Lord God for the blessings He has given us, including a new day. This is a time when we listen quietly inviting God to speak to us and ask Him for guidance to do His will through the day. We pray at night and thank Him for being with us during our circumstances and allowing us to talk directly to Him, asking for guidance. Starting and ending our day talking with God should allow us to sleep peacefully at night and let go of our worry, fear, and doubt because we have turned it over to the Lord.
To pray without ceasing doesn’t mean we are going to have our heads bowed and eyes closed all day long. I believe that Paul is referring to an attitude of God consciousness and surrender that we carry with us all the time. Every minute we are awake we should be aware that God is with us and He is actively involved and engaged in our thoughts and actions.
When we go through times of despair and allow worry, fear, and discouragement to get us down, this is when the Holy Spirit helps us overcome these problems if we allow Him to be in control. Paul tells in Philippians 4:6; “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present you requests to God.”
As a child of God we should have prayer as a natural response to anything that we encounter. The problem with Christians today is that we try and fix situations ourselves instead of relying on God to guide us and help us. Our sinful nature takes over when we are not talking with God or being aware that we can depend on Him for anything and in every situation. We must remember that God will never leave us when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. The problems we encounter are when we step away from Him and dive back into the pleasures and destruction of sin. Most of us confuse human success with divine blessing.
When is it time to pray? Our prayer life should be continuous, persistent, and incessant as a part of our Christian living. This comes from our humility, trust, and dependence on God to see us through any and every day of our life.
Prayer: Thank you Jesus for being with me in everything that I do. I give you praise and glory for guiding me and allowing me to talk with you at any time. Amen.
