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| Monroe County |
It's 7 AM in Monroe, Michigan. As I woke up, put on my bath robe, and came downstairs I noticed I was praying. I was thanking God for being awake and alive and for this day. I had not made a conscious decision to pray. I was just praying. Is this the "unceasing prayer" life Paul was talking about? I think so.
A life of unceasing prayer comes from a disciplined life of choosing to pray. I have been choosing to set aside time to pray for almost four decades. Like this afternoon when I will pray for 3-4 hours, as has been my choice for years. This discipline, which has become the fountain of my spiritual life, has produced the experience of ongoing prayer-relationship with God. Praying has become DNA. My default heart-setting has become prayer.
I think it's like this. If you sing a song you like over and over and over that song will get inside you and, in a way, the song becomes you. You wake up humming the melody. I'm thinking that prayer and praying is becoming that for me.
Choose to pray.
Discover the beauty of the Relationship.
Praying becomes you, comprehensively.
Scripture gives a number of verses calling us to live a comprehensive life of praying. We read:
“Pray without ceasing”
1 Thess. 5:17
“Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer”
Rom. 12:12
”Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication”
Eph. 6:18
“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving”
Col. 4:2
“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”
Phil. 4:6
“Continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name”
Heb. 13:15
Jesus spoke of our “need to pray always and not to lose heart”
Luke 18:1
Here we see the possibility of living in constant, unbroken relationship with God. One's spiritual life becomes seamless. A disciplined prayer life leads to this.
