Pray Without Ceasing
Pray without ceasing . . . and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.
1 Thessalonians 5:17, 23
Remember that you can pray anytime, anywhere. Washing dishes, digging ditches, working in the office, in the shop, on the athletic field, even in prison—you can pray and know God hears! We have a friend on death row who prays for us every morning between four and six. How often this fact has encouraged and cheered us on.
Try to have a systematic method of prayer. Prayer combined with Bible study makes for a healthy Christian life. The Bible says, “Pray without ceasing.” If you have special prayer periods that you set aside during the day, your unconscious life will be saturated with prayer between the prayer periods. It is not enough for you to get out of bed in the morning and just bow your knee and repeat a few sentences. There should be stated periods in which you slip apart with God. For the overworked mother or one living under extremely busy circumstances, this may be impossible. But here is where “prayer without ceasing” comes in. We pray as we work. As we have said, we pray everywhere, anytime.
The devil will fight you every step of the way. He will cause the baby to cry, the telephone to ring, someone to knock at the door—there will be many interruptions, but keep at it! Don’t be discouraged. Soon you will find that these periods of prayer are the greatest delight in your life. You will look forward to them with more anticipation than to anything else. Without constant, daily, systematic prayer, your life will seem barren, discouraging, and fruitless. Without constant prayer you never can know the inner peace that God wants to give you.
Our Father and our God, what a blessing it is to talk to You! It refreshes my soul, delights my heart, and gives me great joy. Please hear my heart through Christ Jesus, my Mediator, not just my own halting words. And help me learn to hear Your responses more clearly, Lord. Through Jesus I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).