Blog 36 / Our High Calling
July 29, 2021
Finding Time to Pray
“Pray without ceasing.” I Thes. 5:17(KJV)
Scripture is clear – we are told to pray without ceasing. As impractical as this seems, every command God gives us is doable as long as we keep in mind it is Christ in us who keeps each command. Our part is to commit and depend on Him to fulfill in us what the Word requires of us.
Since Christ lives in us and is in continual prayer fellowship with the Father, then unceasing prayer must flow from our lives too – even while we sleep!
Of course we want to be in unbroken prayer fellowship with our Lord while we are awake too, even when we are engaged in our daily tasks. Whenever possible we should find time to pray.
There is much to pray about. Our world has huge problems. The effects of pandemics, wars, crime, immorality, injustice, and natural disasters wreak a massive toll on the nations. But we need not wring our hands in despair when confronted with overwhelming needs. We can do something about it. We can pray and make a difference!
For many of us our problem is remembering to pray. It’s not that we don’t think prayer will help, it is just that we don’t always think to pray. There are things we can do though to develop a habit of praying. A friend of mine often uses the time waiting at red traffic lights to pray.
Also, if we see an item on the news that concerns us, we can mute the TV during a program break, or pause it, and ask God to work in that situation whether it is a natural disaster or a political issue.
I recently learned about a group that takes seriously Luke 10:2 where Jesus asked His people to pray for workers to be sent into the harvest. This group started using the Luke reference for praying this prayer every day at 10:02 in the morning. Many people are using their cellphone alarms to remind themselves to stop and pray!
There are many things we can do to remind ourselves to pray. And while our on-the-go prayers don’t replace our daily devotional prayer times or our church prayer meetings, they do supplement greatly the ground we cover in prayer.
The bottom line is most of us make time for the things we really want to do. The question is, do we really want to pray? Finding time to pray is not always easy because choosing to pray will often mean we have to interrupt what we are doing. At the end of the day, a genuine desire to pray is the result of a life fully yielded to God, a life that has set its heart on identifying with His purposes and looks for every opportunity to pray them into being.
Colin Stott
GRN Global Prayer Coordinator
