A Simple Way to Pray Without Ceasing

Prayer is one of the more elusive aspects of the Christian faith. As the old saying goes, it’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery - that seems to be buried in some long-forgotten cave on an uncharted island, which also just so happens to be shrouded in an impenetrable fog of obscurity. It doesn’t help that one of the most memorable Bible verses on prayer is 1 Thessalonians 5:17; a verse that is just pithy enough to stick to your brain like glue, and just vague enough to leave you feeling helplessly confused. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 simply reads:

Pray continually.

Pray continually, Paul tells us, as if it weren’t already difficult enough to put the phone on do not disturb and commit just 30 minutes per day to prayer. Pray continually, Paul exhorts us, as if to say that our quick shotgun prayers before meals don’t quite attain to the full richness of a deep prayer life. Yes, pray continually, Paul instructs us, as if even our regularly set apart prayer time is not enough; or, as other translations so strongly put it, pray without ceasing, or pray constantly, or pray all the time. No small imperative.

All by itself, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 can be a burdening, bewildering, and discouraging word to an already burdened, bewildered, and discouraged people. We might wonder, after reading or hearing this verse, if we are being commanded to simply drop everything, don the dark robes of the monks, and throw out our backs by bowing over with our faces to the ground in 24/7 prayer.

For those of us who find ourselves unable to join a monastery, it seems we’re doomed to an unfulfilling and guilt-ridden prayer life. We might get in our dedicated 30 minutes of prayer per day, but that’s all. Anything beyond half an hour of silent, social-media-and-phone-free prayer, seems extraneous and impossible - let alone praying continually, without ceasing, constantly, all the time.

Thankfully, much like an amateur magician’s card tricks, things are very rarely just what they seem, and that is especially true when it comes to praying continually.

A FALSE CARICATURE

If we step back from our self-induced despair long enough, we can more clearly identify one of the more subtle obstacles that blocks us from a more robust prayer life: our subconscious caricature of prayer. This rigid and depressing mental picture has probably done more to hamper the prayer lives of Christians than anything else in church history. I imagine that you are familiar with it: it’s the one where the person is on their knees in front of an open Bible, palms clasped together, eyes closed tight with piety, brow furrowed with holiness, with an inexplicable light shining down on them from heaven to signify the Lord’s pleasure with their mastery of King James English. Somewhere along the way, this imagery infected our minds, and for some reason we began thinking to ourselves, “Prayer only counts if it looks exactly like that.”

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong if some of our prayer time looks a little bit like that -  but if that’s the primary picture of prayer that we’re carrying around in our heads, it’s no wonder we feel hopeless to follow the directive of 1 Thessalonians 5:17. No one could pray like that continually - not even a monk!

What we need to do is rid ourselves of this false caricature, and reframe our mental picture of what prayer actually looks like in practice. We need to expand our understanding of prayer. We need to see that we can pray even when our heads aren’t bowed and our eyes aren’t closed. If we do that, we might find that ceaseless prayer won’t seem quite so out of reach. We might even take a cue on how to pray ceaselessly from our friends the monks!

Breathe

In the time it’s taken you to read this article, you’ve probably drawn 20-30 breaths. You did this without thinking about it or even realizing it. At this very moment, you may be hyper-aware of the air filling and exiting your lungs with each breath, simply because I’ve pointed it out - but eventually that awareness will retreat into the recesses of your mind to hibernate until your next vigorous physical activity. But even when the awareness fades away, you will keep breathing.

The monks of the ancient church took advantage of our natural giftedness at breathing by utilizing what are called “breath prayers.” They are exactly what they sound like. Rather than viewing prayer as an activity that could only be performed prostrate before an altar, or on their knees at the sound of a ringing bell, the monks learned to channel even their simple breaths into prayers. They would inhale, and on the exhale they would pray, “Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” It became a way for them to pray continually while getting the day’s work done. They still committed extensive amounts of time solely to prayer, just as we all should - but even monks have other things to do on any given day, and with breath prayers, neither prayer nor productivity were sacrificed.

It sounds deceptively simple, but what if we could learn to make prayer as simple and natural as breathing? What if, in addition to that 30 minutes (or however long!) per day that we commit to social-media-and-phone-free prayer, we began breathing out almost constantly, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me,” or, “Father, help me know your love for me,” or, “Holy Spirit, fill me with your peace,” or, “God, let your kingdom come,” or any other prayer that comes to our hearts? It might be that, more plainly and more profoundly than ever before, we would have eyes that are wide-open to the remarkable presence of God in every seemingly unremarkable moment of our days. When prayer flows naturally out of our very breath, while we work and play and walk and drive, we take one step closer to praying continually, without ceasing, constantly, all the time. And to that end I pray, Father, help us.