How to Pray Without Ceasing | 3 Easy Ways

1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:17‬ ‭instructs believers to pray without ceasing, but have you ever wondered if this type of continual prayer was possible and, if so, how to do it? In today’s video, learn what it means to pray without ceasing and three important ways you can start this life-changing type of prayer today.

Today, I want to talk to you about a specific verse in the Bible. It's a very short verse about prayer, and it's the one you've probably heard before.

It's 1 Thessalonians 5:17. In the New International Version, it says:

In the New Living Translation, it says:

In the English Standard Version, this might be the version that you're most used to hearing, it says:

The apostle Paul wrote Thessalonians to the church to instruct believers on how to conduct themselves as children of God as they wait on the return of Christ. In this letter, we find this short, simple verse on how they, and we should pray. We are called to pray without ceasing.

Now, I know that can bring up a lot of questions like: Is it possible to pray without ceasing and if so, how does one actually pray without ceasing? How can I pray all the time? I have things to do and bills to pay, and kids to take care of and work that has to be done. I just can't pray all the time.

Now, if you feel that God wouldn't call us to do something that He hasn't equipped us to do or that wasn't possible for us to do, you're correct. So the idea of praying without ceasing shows that prayer is not about location or formalities. It's a continual and natural conversation with God, like breathing. The call to pray without ceasing implies that prayer is more than closing our eyes and saying some words, but it's about connecting with the God of the universe at all times.

Praying without ceasing does not mean that your every thought or word is praying to God. Obviously, I'm talking to you right now and I'm not in a traditional form of praying to God right now. Praying without ceasing means that we just don't stop the practice of praying. Think of someone who called themselves a runner. They don't run every waking minute of every day, but they're still a runner because they practice running every day or every few days. They do it continually and they don't stop. The same is true for us as believers. We are expected to pray. We are expected to continually be in communication with God. We are called to consistently practice the discipline of prayer.

I love this quote from Matthew Henry about what it means to pray without ceasing. He says: 

What we further learn is that we're not supposed to just be in our prayer closet 24/7/365, always praying. What good will we be to our families and the world if we did that? But we are to continually pray so that we are empowered in the work that God has called us to do in our families, in our churches, in our communities, and in our own lives. When we pray without ceasing, it's not about the act of prayer, it's about a heart to pray anywhere, anywhere, about anything. There are three aspects of prayer that I want to break down to you today because they show how we can actually and practically pray without ceasing. This means cultivating a heart to pray anywhere, to pray any way, and to pray about anything.

HOW TO PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

Pray Anywhere 

First, we are to pray anywhere and we can pray anywhere because God is everywhere. If we want to pray without ceasing, we have to remember that God is always with us. Prayer again is our communication and access to God, so it's not like we have to be in a prayer closet or be at church, or we have to follow all these formalities.

We pray because we can connect with God anywhere because he is everywhere. 

The other day my son came to me and he said, “Mommy, if I open my eyes when I pray, can God still hear me?” I was so pleased to let him know, “yes,” even if you pray with your eyes open, God can still hear your prayers. Because prayer again, is not about the formalities.

It's not about where we are. It's about where God is and our ability to connect with Him everywhere and He is always with us, which means we can always pray. Psalm 139:7-10 says:

The psalmist understands that we can pray anywhere. If you're washing dishes in the evening as your family gets ready for bed. If you're waiting in the carpool line. If you're stuck in traffic. If you are in a hospital bed laying on your back, God is there. And if He's there, that means we can pray to Him. We can ask Him for help. We can ask Him for guidance. We can just simply talk to Him and thank Him for being wherever we are.

Praying without ceasing means praying anywhere. It means recognizing that God is always with us, and when we have that in the forefront of our mind, we’re reminded that God is that friend that's always beside us, never leaving us. Even if we're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, He's with us, and that means we can always talk to Him. We have someone we can always commune with and we're never alone when we pray.

Pray Anyway

Next, if we want to pray without ceasing, we have to remember that we can pray anyway. This means that we can pray in any circumstance. It doesn't have to be in a church, but just the simple fact that we don't give up on praying.

I have an entire video on answering the question “Why should I pray if God already knows?” so be sure to go back and check out that one. Prayer isn’t about just making requests, but growing up our spiritual muscles. It's about growing our relationship with God. 

When we feel like we're facing a difficult or impossible situation, that's not when we say, I'm not going to pray. No. That's when we lean in. That's when we say, I'm especially going to pray now. 

To pray without ceasing reminds us that, yes, we're weak and we can't do it, but God can do anything. When you're in doubt, pray anyway. When you are frustrated and you don't know what to do, pray anyway. When you wanna give up and you wanna let go, pray anyway. Don't give up on prayer. Again, prayer is not about getting what we want, it's about changing our hearts in the process. Sometimes we will get what we want and sometimes we won't, but we will always be changed for the better when we decide to not give up on prayer and pray anyway. 

Pray About Anything

Next, in order to pray without ceasing, we need to be able to pray about anything. Prayer needs to be very natural and conversational with God, and this means that we can pray to God about anything. We don't have to feel insecure about bringing something to God for two reasons. One He already knows, and two, there's no condemnation in Christ for those who place their faith in Him.

We don't have to feel insecure or like we're not good enough to pray. God wants to talk to us. He wants us to enter His presence through prayer. He wants us to cast our cares on Him. 

There's nothing too big that He can't handle and nothing too small that He can’t care about. We need to have the confidence to approach His throne about anything with prayer because God can handle whatever comes our way. I love that Philippians 4:6-7 tells us not to worry about anything but instead, pray about everything. Everything. Sometimes we feel like this is too small. God has bigger issues that He can be worried about, but God cares even about the seemingly little things to us because he cares about us. We can't get caught into thinking that this is too big for me to pray about, or this is too small for me to pray about. The Bible doesn't say only pray about the big things or only pray about the small things. It says, pray about everything. If we really take this approach to prayer and get real with God and pray with him about everything, we can pray continually, because, trust me, we will not run out of things to say.

I encourage you to keep your traditional prayer time. Maybe you pray in the morning when you get up, or maybe you pray in the evenings before you go to bed. Maybe you pray in the car with your kids as you drive to school or on your commute home from work. Keep those traditional prayer times, but I also want to encourage you to have conversational prayer times. These are times when you're praying and it just wasn't planned.

You're in the grocery store, and you see someone that looks sad, and you just say a little prayer for them, or maybe you just got off the phone with your husband, and you noticed a sense of discouragement in his voice, so you just say a little prayer right there for him. Or maybe you're talking to a friend, and she's making a very important decision, and you say, can I just pray with you really quickly?

I want you to be a little more spontaneous with your prayer this week and I want you to get creative about praying during times you wouldn't normally think to pray. It doesn't have to be these long prayers. Just a quick prayer from your heart to God’s ears.

When we pray without ceasing, it's not about acts of prayer, but cultivating a heart to pray anywhere, anyway, and about anything.

Did you know God made us all beautifully different even in the way we pray? That’s right. Your prayer personality is the unique way you are most likely to communicate with God and knowing which of the 3  prayer personality types you have can equip you to hear from God more clearly and overcome any obstacles to your communication with Him. 

I invite you to take my Prayer Personality Quiz to learn how you best hear from God, how you most likely connect with Him in prayer, and to just have a little fun. Take the quiz now at prayquiz.com or find the link in the description of today’s video. Then be sure to come back and comment to let me know your results.

If you enjoyed today’s videos, will you do me a favor and share it with a friend because you just never know who might need some Beloved encouragement today. 

And for more Beloved encouragement, be sure to join the Beloved Women app for instant access to the most highly curated collection of spiritual growth videos for Christian women where you can enjoy daily audio devotions, over 500 videos, and guided prayer meditations conveniently in the palm of your hand. I look forward to connecting with you there. 

As always, thank you so much for watching, and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and be loved.