Hi Everyone-
I hope you're doing well. We had a pretty crazy week with a snow storm hitting us, which threw all our schedules out of whack. Have you ever read, or heard, anything from the Bible and thought, "Yeah, that sounds cool, but it's totally not doable'? Or maybe, "Yeah, right. The author has got to be exaggerating for effect!"
I have long thought this about Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. He writes, "Never stop praying." (NLT)
Really? Never stop praying (or "pray without ceasing" in other translations)? That can't be possible, Paul must be speaking in hyperbole. Right? I don't think I've been alone in this thought have I?
One of my classes last term was Spiritual Formation: Prayer, Practice, and Presence. We talked and read a lot about prayer. Something I learned, and am still learning, is that with intention anything/everything can become a prayer. The key word, in my opinion, is intention. First let me briefly give the foundation for this and then a couple examples.
God is everywhere. And prayer is a conversation with God. So, every place and situation contains the opportunity for conversation with God, right? So, it is technically possible to always be praying, if we recognize the opportunity.
I learned/discovered last term a few cool ways to recognize and take advantage of this truth last term. First, when I see beauty out in the world (the snow capped mountains, the sunrise, beautiful forests, etc) I try to remember to use that as an opportunity to prayerfully praise God for the goodness of His creation. Another thing I think is pretty cool is combining the Jesus Prayer with walking or running. It can look a lot of different ways, but what I've experimented with is repeating "Jesus ... Have ... Mercy" in time with my footfalls, over and over again. As I do this, some images of what this would look like come to mind as prayer-images. Finally, I like to work out. So, I've started trying to pray for God to use and bless particular body parts as I use them in a workout (biceps, shoulders, legs, abs, breath, core, etc.). I found this particularly connecting to God during the hardest parts of workouts.
I'm not saying I actually pray all the time, but I am praying more and more. Plus, I see Paul's exhortation as not a hyperbole, but a possibility.
What do you think? Is it doable? What are some ways you can imagine prayer becoming more a part of our lives?
Grace and peace,
Lang
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I like the realization that all we do can be a prayer, with intentionality on our part. I would add, however, that we are always praying/preying: either we're directing what we do and say to God or out of God's direction with us, which is "prayer," or we're looking to someone/something else for Life abundantly. This latter phenomenon is what I call "preying" because what most characterizes its agency is the unsatisfied consumption of another person of thing. It is death and destruction because its parasitic nature is hellbent on chewing up and swallowing life without the reciprocity of giving the Life of Christ.
ReplyDeleteI like the pray vs. prey, that's a pretty insightful way of looking at things.
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