Pray Without Ceasing

     I have always wondered, ever since I first heard the verse in Sunday School, what “praying without ceasing” meant (1 Thessalonians 5:17).  To make matters worse, the New International Version translates the passage to say “pray continually.”  Does this verse mean that I have to spend my entire waking life praying…uttering words of confession, praise, thanksgiving, or petition to God? Should I wear out all the knees in all my clothes kneeling in prayer? And, if it doesn’t mean this, what does it mean?                 

     One of my favorite figures in Christian history was a man by the name of Brother Lawrence.  Brother Lawrence was a 17^th century Carmelite monk who served as the cook of his monastery. Brother Lawrence is most remembered today for his closeness to God which he recorded in the spiritual classic The Practice of the Presence of God.  While he worked in the kitchen scrubbing pots and cooking over a hot stove, Brother Lawrence  developed his rule of spirituality and work: "Men invent means and methods of coming at God's love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?"

     For Brother Lawrence, "common business," no matter how mundane or routine, was the medium of God's love. The issue was not the sacredness or worldly status of the task but the motivation behind it. "Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."                                       

     From Brother Lawrence we begin to learn what it means to pray without ceasing.  To pray without ceasing does not mean spending the whole day in prayer on our knees, rather it means to live every moment for God, reaching out for his love and glory in every task of our lives.   Brother Lawrence sought out the love of God in every detail of his life: "I began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world." Together, God and Brother Lawrence cooked meals, ran errands, and scrubbed pots.  In the same way, we can do our jobs, care for and manage our homes, pay our bills, and run errands with God.  When we do this we are truly praying without ceasing, and, when we pray without ceasing we grow closer and closer to God.