What Does it Mean to Pray Without Ceasing?

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1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.”

Part of this post is my response to a devastated parent who emailed me asking how she could help her prodigal. (Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.)

Dear Susan:

You told me how hard you are praying for Missy, and I’m glad you are. It’s the single most effective thing you and I can do to help the prodigals we love so much. And it doesn’t only help them; it helps us too.

The journey of loving a prodigal is one of the hardest ones we will ever walk. However, it becomes doable for me one day at a time when I can take my prodigal to a loving God and know that He loves that prodigal even more than I do. The challenge is to continue praying…to “pray without ceasing” even when we can’t see God’s hand in what’s happening. How do we do that?

I heard a friend talking about an experience he had with a “big name” speaker at a Christian convention. He said he was with him in every workshop, at every meal and they shared a room so he was even with him at night and in the morning. He said he was troubled at first that he had not seen the man set aside time to read his Bible and pray. Then he concluded that this man had discovered the secret to “praying without ceasing.” (1 Thess 5:17) Nice try, wrong conclusion.

While it is certainly a good thing to have an attitude of prayer all the time, that verse in 1 Thessalonians isn’t telling us to do the impossible…that is, to pray 24 hours a day with no thoughts but those directed to our God. And whether this man was a “big name” or not, nothing can replace setting aside a time every day to pray. So what does it mean when we are told in1 Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing?”

Simply put, it means we continue to pray even when the answer to that prayer seems impossible. It means we keep on praying even when it has been 25 years or the heavens seem like brass, or we’ve wept before the Lord until we have no tears left. It means we don’t quit. It means we don’t give up. It means we continue to believe God in spite of the circumstances, the discouragement, the seeming hopelessness. It means as long as you and I have breath, we continue to pray for our prodigal.

I recently heard Dr. Robert Smith speak on prayer. He asked a most interesting question: “Who promised you would get to see the answer to your prayer in your lifetime?” Let’s not just rush past that question. Let’s take a minute to think about it. When I did, it was like the “Duh!” factor kicked in. It’s my job to intercede for my precious prodigal, to pray and to keep on praying. And it’s God’s job to answer that prayer…in His way, in His time, and to His purpose.

God’s word promises us that He is close to the broken hearted (Psalm 34:18) and the tears of a broken hearted parent are a language of the heart that God understands. So it doesn’t even matter whether we have the words or know what to pray. The Holy Spirit will intercede for us with “groanings that cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:26) Our responsibility, our privilege, our joy is just to keep on praying and leave the outcome to God.

Challenge for today: What might happen if we, just for today, determined we would pray without ceasing for our prodigal?