Prayer As Conversation
Pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 (emphasis added)
Anyone else feel a bit deflated when they read that verse about praying continually? I mean, how do you do that? I have friends who love to pray and spend hours a day doing it. Most of us aren’t in that camp though. If prayer should be the distinguishing feature that marks a man’s thinking and approach, how can we step into the “continually” part?
The good news is that that God doesn’t expect us to spend 16 hours a day in prayer. Under the New Covenant of grace, we’ve exchanged rote religion with rich relationship. To pray continually is about conversation; it’s about taking on the mind of Christ more and more, year by year, to the point that we are talking with God throughout our day. God’s man brings before the Father anything that might have a spiritual, eternal, or practical impact on his life or for the good of God’s kingdom. For God’s man, prayer is an attitude he adopts toward all situations and relationships in which he finds himself. Think of a ship’s radar—it searches the horizon for enemies and obstacles, and constantly sweeps the landscape for what’s up ahead. The Holy Spirit is our radar—He is our helper who alerts us to the things that matter to God.
The discipline of continual prayer (ongoing conversation) is like any other spiritual “muscle”—we need to work it, build it, and feed it. If you don’t know where to start, set your phone alarm for five minutes. Then the next day, set it for six. And so on. That’s how a prayer life begins. And then after a while, tapping into God should feel natural because you’re accustomed to thinking about doing it. That’s because you know that prayer changes the course of things. To be supplicant to God means acknowledging that He is more powerful than you—far more powerful.
Father, help me build my conversational skills so I both hear your voice and respond to it.