Lesson 23: Talking with God in Prayer (part 2)

Read: 2 Chronicles 7:4-22 - www.bible.com/bible/59/2chr.7.esv

The second thing to look at is the second shortest verse in the Bible, 1 Thessalonians 5:17: "Pray without ceasing." We cannot possibly spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, all of our lives doing nothing but praying. We wouldn't live long if we couldn't eat or sleep or drink or even work. So what does this command mean? It means we must rethink our mode of communication, we must LEARN to communicate with God.

When we are young and newly married we want to spend all our time with our new spouse. In a way, we can accomplish this even though one or the other leaves home for many hours a day to go to work. The one left behind plans for the moment when they are reunited. All through the day they memorize moments to share, they treasure up thoughts they will speak, caresses they will give, or pleasures they will communicate. When the front door opens and that person walks in, the waiting spouse runs to greet and embrace the other. All day long their thoughts have been about each other, all day long they have done little but dream of this moment.

With God our thoughts can be just as occupied with Him as these lovers’ thoughts have been occupied with each other. In the case of our relationship with God, however, those thoughts can also be prayers because God can read our thoughts. We are never separated, as those lovers are, from the one we love. God is always with us, we just can't see Him.


While those lovers were on their honeymoon, they were never separated. They, however, did not speak every single moment of the day and night. A touch of the hand, a look of the eye, a smile, a shrug of the shoulders, were all communication with the other. They were conscious of each other's presence at every moment. This is the meaning of "praying without ceasing." We are conscious of God at every moment of our life. Every flower we see, every bird we hear, every tear from our eye, every sigh of our heart is communicated to God; we’re aware of this if we simply turn our attention to Him. And the Holy Spirit communicates with God the true feelings of our heart – even when we might not consciously know what it is we’re wanting to say to God (Romans 8:26).

*An exercise: Place an empty chair in front of your chair, in your mind picture God sitting in that chair. Talk to Him as if He’s sitting there listening just to you. And He is – but He’s even closer to you than that chair!