If you could spend unlimited time with someone, who would that be?  How would you pursue and develop that relationship?  Would it be via e-mail, over the phone or face to face?  In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, the Apostle Paul tells us to Pray without ceasing.  Paul is encouraging us to not only rely upon God, but to deepen our relationship with him. Paul is showing us that the way for us to live is by staying close to God.

     The context of this message to us is a church suffering persecution. The Thessalonian church included some Jews, but mostly Gentiles and Paul was encouraging them to be steadfast in their faith.  Though we today in the Western Church are not being persecuted in the same fashion, we are being bombarded with things that would draw us away from God.  So the encouragement to be steadfast and to live connected to the Father, is as important for us today.  In our human relationships, we need to maintain connection.  Daily we are involved in relationships with others, at home, in the workplace and just generally as we move in and through our communities and our world.  Maintaining those take time and effort and our close relationships many times mean making them a priority.  How much more then our relationship with God.

     To get behind what Paul means, we need to understand where Paul is coming from.  Remember that Paul had very deep and strong roots in Judaism.  He describes himself as once a Pharisee of Pharisees.  The practice of prayer for them was numerous prayers throughout the day.  Prayers of praise, blessing, thanksgiving, confession, petition, and intercession.  Beginning with the Shema Hear O Israel the Lord is our God, the Lord is one! (Deut 6:4) This would be prayed morning and evening including the 3rd hour (8-9) and the ninth hour (2-3).

     Paul had a totally Theo centric worldview.  Paul’s life was lived in a moment by moment consciousness of the eternal existence of a Holy, Sovereign God. (1 Tim 6:15b-16) It was impossible for the Apostle to conceive of any human activity apart from God.  He believed that the creature had an obligation to pray to the creator.  He believed that thanksgiving should be motivated by our salvation.  Paul’s prayer focus was also on the eternal rather than the temporal.  The patterns of Paul’s prayers that scholars see show virtually no petition for many practical things.  Such as daily bread, health or healing, improved economic situations, etc.

     Prayers are more about what is not seen.  In Ephesians 1 15-23 we see an example of  Paul’s intercessory prayer. The prayer is more about knowing God and his purposes.  For Paul prayer is relational.  In his exhortation to pray continually the Greek word choice and context shows us that the prayer is reciprical, not one sided, it is totally to be relational.  The Scriptures reinforce this dynamic.  In the Psalms for example we see this ongoing relationship between God and his people.  As we read through them we hear conversations, the dialogue if you will, between God and man.  We see praise, lament and thanksgiving.  We see a whole gamut of emotions being expressed between them.

     So in light of this, how are we to respond.  In an effort to honor the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to pray continually the Church has had through time specific schedules for prayer, both individual and corporate, i.e. the divine office and the book of hours.  Many of us too have put into practice prayer habits that bring us to this sense of unceasing prayer. But we need to be reminded that prayer is in fact dialogue.  Donald Spoto writes, Dialogue is more than converstion, of course; it is first of all a condition of openness, of receptivity, which is the prerequisite of communication.  Yet many people come to prayer presuming that it is only the time for God to listen to our needs.

     There is an honesty needed on our part when coming to prayer.  Henri Nouwen writes, We tend to present to God only those parts of ourselves with which we feel relatively comfortable and which we think will evoke a positive response.  Thus our prayer becomes very selective and narrow and not just prayer but also our self knowledge, because by behaving as strangers before God we become strangers to ourselves. 

     We must pay attention and have the intention to deepen our relationship with God. Donald Spoto writes, Attentive for God, waiting for God, eager for the word and touch of God–such expressions all point to the meaning of dialogue, of living in the presence of the Lord.  All of this I believe points to what the Apostle Paul is saying to us.  Just as Paul lived in a moment by moment consciousness of the eternal existence of a Holy God, we too need to live in that same Consciousness.

     How are you going to pursue this relationship with God?

Picture: Enlighten, By the wandering Angel

Quotes: Henri Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing

               Donald Spoto, In Silence: Why We Pray

Tagged as: dialogue, Prayer, unceasing