"PRAY WITHOUT CEASING" - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Paul was writing this letter to a church he had helped establish on his second missionary journey.  He seeks to remind them of the eternal perspective in a culture filled with distractions (sound familiar?).  He tells them "let us not be like others" (my mother's favorite line in my childhood).  He told them we don't belong to the dark, we belong to the light of Jesus Christ!  Prayer was as essential in Paul's time as it is today!

I'm going to tell a story on myself - Don's favorite!  When we lived in Miami shortly after we were married there was a major storm and the city told everyone we would have to boil drinking water for 36 hours and I said "how can that be?" - I thought that old pot had to sit on the stove and boil for 36 hours!  He later retold that story at a dinner party (and has told it many times since!) and the man across the table said "I'm so glad my wife didn't say that!".  Don knew he had a "work-in-progress"!

Well, you might ask:  how is praying continually possible?  This is what Oswald Chambers says:

"If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs

and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly.  The blood

flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly;

we are not conscious of it but it is always going on."

Are the lines of communication always open between you and your Father in heaven?  Prayer is not an exercise in the morning, it's a dependence throughout the day that the Lord is with you and that He is listening to your heart.   Do you believe that He hears and will answer?  Trust Him with all that causes you joy and heartache and believe that His perfect will is for you to know Him and depend upon Him only.

For further study:  2 Chronicles 7:14, Job 42:10, Psalm 15:8, Matthew 6:7-13, 11:24, Romans 12:12,

Philippians 4:6, James 5:16, 1 Peter 3:12, Revelation 5:8

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly