Pray Without Ceasing

We decided to go for a family bike ride the other night. Really it seemed like a great idea at the time, but as we got started down the street I knew we definitely looked more like a circus parading into town than anything. We stopped to look at every leaf, pick up every rock, and wave to every car. Finally we reached the bike path, and the scenery was less distracting. Here the boys were just happy they could go on ahead without us slowing them down or telling them to be careful. The bike path on the edge of town circles the big school and all of the surrounding sports fields. There they can race away without worrying about cars and they love to leave us in their dust. Brandon and I slowed our pace a little and watched them take off.

When we rounded the corner, there was our five year old, Benaiah kneeling on the ground. He wasn’t acting hurt, so I just assumed that he was inspecting a bug or a rock. As we got closer though, I realized he had his head bowed and his eyes closed. When he heard us coming he looked up, smiled, and hopped back on his bike. Brandon caught up to him and asked what he’d been doing. “Praying dad.” Benaiah said that he remembered a story he’d heard where Jesus answered a prayer for a girl so she stopped what she was doing and thanked Him. He said he wanted to thank Jesus that we could go out on a bike ride and thought that he should do it right away. In fact, the prayer was so important to him that he willingly let his brother win the race they were having. I was struck by equal parts pride and conviction. How was my five year old so sensitive to the Spirit that he would stop on a bike ride to take a second and thank Jesus?

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to “Pray without ceasing”. We often think that our prayers have to be big and wordy. That they have to be long and theologically sound. But really, this scripture means that we endeavor to live a life that is so focused on Jesus that carrying on daily conversation with Him is second nature. We “practice His presence”, acknowledging He is with us every moment and all we have to do is speak to Him.

What would it be like if we started talking to Jesus before we opened our eyes in the morning but instead of saying amen we continued all day? That we made it the biggest part of our day? What if we were so aware of His presence that the conversation flowed as naturally with Jesus as it does with our best friend? 

Our two year old daughter, Jubilee, talks nonstop. She talks in her carseat, she talks while she’s playing alone in the toy room, she talks while we’re eating, she talks while we tuck her in at night. It’s natural for her. She doesn’t sit quietly trying to think of the right words to say, she doesn’t let whatever she’s doing distract her from what she wants to say. She just says it. No matter where she is, no matter what she’s doing. All day long. Alllllll day long.

 Could this be what it means to become like a child? Could it be that as little children sat on Jesus’s knee they talked to Him about the rock they had picked up along the road and what they ate for breakfast? Maybe their conversation with Him was unhindered by the knowledge of who He was or trying to find the right words to impress Him. They just knew that He would listen, that He cared about what they said and that He loved them.

He’s asking us to come to Him without reservation. Without waiting for our words to be polished. He wants us to come knowing that He cares about what we have to say and that He loves us.

He wants us to learn to commune with Him. For our conversation with Him to flow from us as naturally as it does from a two year old who always has something to say. To tell Him about our day, talk to Him about what is heavy on our minds.

To hop off our bikes and drop to our knees on the grass to thank Him for a bike ride, recognizing that every good and perfect gift is from Him.