How do I pray without ceasing?

[Lanae]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

To "pray without ceasing" is to walk in the Holy Spirit. You are in union with The Father at all times. Sometimes you talk to Him, sometimes you walk with Him and sometimes you just know He is there.
It is a personal relationship.
Blessings

 

[maintenance man]

"Pray without ceasing" does not mean that you should continuously be in prayer. It means you should never stop praying because life gets difficult. Prayer doesn't always have to be a formal discussion with God, it can be as simple as saying "Thank you, Jesus" when you feel blessed. Your beating heart, your expanding and contracting lungs, the fact that you have food to eat and a roof over your head are all reasons to thank God in a moment of prayer each day. Acknowledge God for every blessing in your life. Turn to God with your concerns. Have a quiet conversation with God at every opportunity.

I'm praying for you right now. I'm praying that you feel a closer connection to God as you work to improve you prayer life. Blessings!

 

[Emmylouwho]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

I’ve never even heard of such a thing. Did someone tell you that you should pray without ceasing? How can anyone do that and why would they want to?

 

[Aabbie James]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

Paul's exhortation to the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing is a divine mandate to all believers.

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.​

It encompasses all the aspects of prayer: submission, confession, petition, intercession, praise, and thanksgiving. Without ceasing means "constant" and defines prayer not as some perpetual activity of kneeling and interceding but as a way of life marked by a continual attitude of prayer.

 

[A_Thinker]

I’ve never even heard of such a thing. Did someone tell you that you should pray without ceasing? How can anyone do that and why would they want to?

It means to stay in constant communication with God, like having a friend/guide/mentor at your side all the time ...

 

[John P. Alexander]

From the Eastern Orthodox Study Bible:

The spiritual Fathers of the Church teach that unceasing prayer is a proper goal, for spiritual growth comes through such discipline. For centuries, Christian people have used the "Jesus Prayer" as a way to pray unceasingly from the heart: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

 

[public hermit]

Try to make every activity you do an act of prayer, an act of thanksgiving and praise. Try to stay conscious of God's continual presence. God is always with you. Be attentive to Him, knowing that He is always attentive to you. And, don't give into discouragement. Progress, not perfection.

 

[-Sasha-]

By turning everything you do into prayer. Are you eating? Thank God. Are you worried? Seek comfort in God. Are you driving? Ask God to keep you safe. Are you working? Ask God to bless your work and that it be fruitful. Etc.

 

[ChicanaRose]

Singing or chanting can also be a form of prayer

 

[rockytopva]

Tuning into daily prayer programs like the one below is a great help!

Family Altar

 

[FutureAndAHope]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

There are often times that prayer can seem like a task, it can be difficult to pray consistently. However, the benefits of prayer are many, and we should pray daily. Really it comes down to, seeking first God's kingdom, over our own will.

As an example, I like to play computer games, and if I am not careful it takes up all of my time. So I have to choose to not play games, and pray. We need to give up our will, to seek the LORD's will.

Not every prayer time will be a task, sometimes Jesus will make himself known through prayer. But it is making a habit of prayer even when you don't want to. Jesus rewards us for prayer.

Mat 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Thanksgiving prayers are easy to practice.My Aunt, When she sat she said "Lord I thank you." She said it when she did anything.I began to imitate her.

By turning everything you do into prayer. Are you eating? Thank God. Are you worried? Seek comfort in God. Are you driving? Ask God to keep you safe. Are you working? Ask God to bless your work and that it be fruitful. Etc.

Amen!

 

[tturt]

Think it's so interesting how Our Creator made us. Sometimes when I run across an article like this, it helps me to understand Scripture such as pray without ceasing. The Stunning Science Behind the Healing Power of Prayer

Yes agree it includes being thankful such as:
"The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” Job 33:4 So each breath you take, He's there.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jer 29:11

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psa 46:1

 

[St_Worm2]

Hi @Lanae, here's a short excerpt from a book called Alone With God by Dr. John MacArthur that may prove useful to you.

A Way of Life
As a child I used to wonder how anyone could pray without ceasing. I pictured Christians walking around with hands folded, heads bowed, and eyes closed, bumping into everything. While certain postures and specific times set aside for prayer have an important bearing on our communication with God, to “pray at all times” obviously does not mean we are to pray in formal or noticeable ways every waking moment. And it does not mean we are to devote ourselves to reciting ritualistic patterns and forms of prayer.

To “pray without ceasing” basically refers to recurring prayer, not nonstop talking. Thus it is to be our way of life—we’re to be continually in an attitude of prayer.

Famous nineteenth-century preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon offers this vivid picture of what praying at all times means:

Like the old knights, always in warfare, not always on their steeds dashing forward with their lances in rest to unhorse an adversary, but always wearing their weapons where they could readily reach them, and always ready to encounter wounds or death for the sake of the cause which they championed. Those grim warriors often slept in their armour; so even when we sleep, we are still to be in the spirit of prayer, so that if perchance we wake in the night we may still be with God. Our soul, having received the divine centripetal influence which makes it seek its heavenly centre, should be evermore naturally rising towards God himself. Our heart is to be like those beacons and watchtowers which were prepared along the coast of England when the invasion of the Armada was hourly expected, not always blazing, but with the wood always dry, and the match always there, the whole pile being ready to blaze up at the appointed moment. Our souls should be in such a condition that ejaculatory prayer should be very frequent with us. No need to pause in business and leave the counter, and fall down upon the knees; the spirit should send up its silent, short, swift petitions to the throne of grace …

A Christian should carry the weapon of all-prayer like a drawn sword in his hand. We should never sheathe our supplications. Never may our hearts be like an unlimbered gun, with everything to be done to it before it can thunder on the foe, but it should be like a piece of cannon, loaded and primed, only requiring the fire that it may be discharged. The soul should be not always in the exercise of prayer, but always in the energy of prayer; not always actually praying, but always intentionally praying (The Parables of Our Lord [Grand Rapids: Baker, reprint 1979], 434–35).
​

I think of praying at all times as living in continual God-consciousness, where everything we see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to our Heavenly Father. It is something I share with my Best Friend—something I instantly communicate with God. To obey this exhortation means that, when we are tempted, we hold the temptation before God and ask for His help. When we experience something good and beautiful, we immediately thank the Lord for it. When we see evil around us, we ask God to make it right and to allow us to help accomplish that, if it is according to His will. When we meet someone who does not know Christ, we pray for God to draw that person to Himself and to use us to be a faithful witness. When we encounter trouble, we turn to God as our Deliverer.

Thus life becomes a continually ascending prayer: all life’s thoughts, deeds, and circumstances become an opportunity to commune with our Heavenly Father. In that way we constantly set our minds “on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2).

Fellowship with God
Since the ultimate purpose of our salvation is to glorify God and to bring us into intimate, rich fellowship with Him, failure to seek God in prayer is to deny that purpose. “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also,” says the Apostle John, “that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

Imagine spending an entire workday with your best friend at your side. You would no doubt acknowledge his presence throughout the day by introducing him to your friends or business associates and talking to him about the various activities of the day. But how would your friend feel if you never talked to him or acknowledged his presence? Yet that’s how we treat the Lord when we fail to pray. If we communicated with our friends as infrequently as some of us communicate with the Lord, those friends might soon disappear.

Our fellowship with God is not meant to wait until we are in heaven. God’s greatest desire, and our greatest need, is to be in constant fellowship with Him now, and there is no greater expression or experience of fellowship than prayer.

In one of his classic works on prayer, Purpose in Prayer, nineteenth-century pastor E.M. Bounds provides us with this reminder of how we must cultivate our fellowship with the Lord:

Prayer is not a meaningless function or duty to be crowded into the busy or the weary ends of the day, and we are not obeying our Lord’s command when we content ourselves with a few minutes upon our knees in the morning rush or late at night when the faculties, tired with the tasks of the day, call out for rest. God is always within call, it is true; His ear is ever attentive to the cry of His child, but we can never get to know Him if we use the vehicle of prayer as we use the telephone, for a few words of hurried conversation. Intimacy requires development. We can never know God as it is our privilege to know Him, by brief and fragmentary and unconsidered repetitions of intercessions that are requests for personal favors and nothing more. That is not the way in which we can come into communication with heaven’s King. “The goal of prayer is the ear of God,” a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us. Only by so doing can we expect to know Him, and as we come to know Him better we shall spend more time in His presence and find that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight ([Chicago: Moody, n.d.], 53–54).
​

~MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1995). Alone with God (pp. 16–18). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.​

--David
p.s. - a 17th Century Christian classic by Brother Lawrence called, The Practice of the Presence of God, would be another interesting read for you. You can find it at many websites to download and/or read for free. There is a quick summary of the book here if you'd care to read it (and I believe you can download it from that site as well).

 

[dailyprayerwarrior]

Well said Maria! Can't say it any better than that. Prayer is fellowship with Our Father all throughout the day.

 

[fwGod]

It can mean, instead of worrying.. pray. Instead of getting angry.. pray. Instead of trying to figure something out on your own.. pray.

There is a scripture that says, talk about God's word when you walking, when you are sitting, when you lie down and when you get up. So when it says "pray without ceasing" it means when you are walking, when you sitting.. when you lie down and when you get up.

Or is there something in the day that is more important?

 

[roman2819]

It is an emphatic way of saying "Be prayerful" . Pray without ceasing just happen to be Paul"s choice of words as he encouraged people ro be prayerful amid sufferings. When Christians iwere being persecuted, he urge them to find strength and refuge in prayer.

While we can be prayerful, however, prayer is not an artificial clutch.

 

[LoricaLady]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

Here is one very helpful way. First an explanation. In the Bible, in Acts, we see believers who suddenly can speak in the languages of foreigners to Israel. Those language can be called "tongues" also.

But there is another kind of tongue that is mentioned:

1 Corinthians 14:2 "For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to YHWH" aka God, "Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit." Therefore we see that this kind of tongue cannot possibly be, as some say, for a foreign language. Foreign languages always have people who understand them!

You might want to research how to get that gift of the Holy Spirit. When we pray in that kind of tongue we are letting the Holy Spirit take over and He knows infinitely better than we do about what we need to be speaking.

The thing is, with tongues you can be just driving along in you car, doing housework or whatever, and the words flow without effort. With ordinary prayer, though it is wonderful too of course, there needs to have some concentration, some thought, much more effort. Once you get the gift of tongues, you can sing in it, too. Easily.

I got the gift of tongues after reading, outloud, a prayer in a little white book called The Holy Spirit And You. But, there is a lot of info out there on how to get the gift. It's not hard at all.

Countless people have said that the gift of tongues transformed their lives.

 

[CassieShannon]

Hey everyone, Can you tell me how to pray without ceasing? Because I've been struggling with praying.

Here is one very helpful way. First an explanation. In the Bible, in Acts, we see believers who suddenly can speak in the languages of foreigners to Israel. Those language can be called "tongues" also.

But there is another kind of tongue that is mentioned:

1 Corinthians 14:2 "For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to YHWH" aka God, "Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit." Therefore we see that this kind of tongue cannot possibly be, as some say, for a foreign language. Foreign languages always have people who understand them!

You might want to research how to get that gift of the Holy Spirit. When we pray in that kind of tongue we are letting the Holy Spirit take over and He knows infinitely better than we do about what we need to be speaking.

The thing is, with tongues you can be just driving along in you car, doing housework or whatever, and the words flow without effort. With ordinary prayer, though it is wonderful too of course, there needs to have some concentration, some thought, much more effort. Once you get the gift of tongues, you can sing in it, too. Easily.

I got the gift of tongues after reading, outloud, a prayer in a little white book called The Holy Spirit And You. But, there is a lot of info out there on how to get the gift. It's not hard at all.

Countless people have said that the gift of tongues transformed their lives.

Praying without ceasing can be overcomplicated. I use to struggle with this myself but overtime I began to understand it simply means that God is always with us and with his Holy Spirit we can always be in touch. Do you have a cell phone? Think of someone you know you could call at 1 am and they would not get mad at you. You could call them for advice on what blouse to wear to a meeting the next day and they would happily tell you what to wear. The Holy Spirit is better than that, we can talk to him at Wal-Mart or ask him to help you discern a situation. Even better still we don't have to say anything because even in silence we know we are choosing to serve God. Praying with out ceasing is to remain in the will and peace through Christ Jesus.