Life is an Ongoing Prayer

Do not be anx­ious about any­thing, but in every­thing, by prayer and peti­tion, with thanks­giv­ing, present your requests to God.

Philip­pi­ans 4:6

God’s Word tells us that we can pray about “every­thing;” how­ever, what are some things in your life that you do not pray to God about? Why don’t you pray to God about what you named above?

The topic of prayer has always fas­ci­nated me. I spent count­less hours stand­ing or sit­ting in church while a pas­tor prayed aloud, alone or with the con­gre­gants. I could not begin to count the num­ber of times I sat qui­etly in a pew dur­ing a spe­cific period in the wor­ship ser­vice reserved for silent prayer. I joined hands with my fel­low parish­ioners as we all stood around a table set with food and prayed our thanks aloud before sit­ting down to enjoy a meal. There have also been a few times when I took the hands of other fam­ily mem­bers gath­ered around the bed­side of a dying rel­a­tive and recited the Lord’s Prayer or other inter­ces­sions along­side them.

Dur­ing a Bible study some years ago, the par­tic­i­pants were asked to anony­mously jot down a few words about their prayer life on an index card. The cards were then given to the pas­tor who read some of the responses aloud. I was rather embar­rassed when the pas­tor read and com­mented upon my descrip­tion: Pray­ing is like breath­ing — auto­matic and essen­tial for life.

O Lord, you have exam­ined my heart
and know every­thing about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know every­thing I do.
You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
You go before me and fol­low me.
You place your hand of bless­ing on my head.
Such knowl­edge is too won­der­ful for me,
too great for me to understand!

I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your pres­ence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morn­ing,
if I dwell by the far­thest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will sup­port me.
I could ask the dark­ness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in dark­ness I can­not hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Dark­ness and light are the same to you.

You made all the del­i­cate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for mak­ing me so won­der­fully com­plex!
Your work­man­ship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclu­sion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a sin­gle day had passed.

How pre­cious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They can­not be num­bered!
I can’t even count them;
they out­num­ber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!

…

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anx­ious thoughts.
Point out any­thing in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of ever­last­ing life.

Psalm 139

There is noth­ing about me that the Divine Cre­ator does not know. There is no thought in my head, desire in my heart, or word upon my lips that I am capa­ble of hid­ing from the Divine Cre­ator. My thoughts, hopes, dreams, tri­umphs, and dis­ap­point­ments — con­scious or uncon­scious — are part of an ongo­ing dia­logue with the Divine Cre­ator. I can never escape from the Spirit or be dis­tanced from the uncon­di­tional, unend­ing love of the Divine Creator.

Viewed from that per­spec­tive, there is no aspect of my life about which I do not pray. There is no require­ment that I stop at a par­tic­u­lar time of day, go to a spe­cific place or use any tool or instru­ment in order to pray. I pray at any time and any place, alone or with other people.

One of the areas in which my thoughts do not often enough take con­scious form is prayer for my ene­mies. (Matthew 5:44) I do not wish harm to any­one, but I do not often enough enun­ci­ate delib­er­ate peti­tions for those per­sons for whom I do not feel much affec­tion or empa­thy absent con­certed effort. “If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even cor­rupt tax col­lec­tors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you dif­fer­ent from any­one else?” (Matthew 5:45–47) I resem­ble a “cor­rupt tax col­lec­tor” more often than I care to admit. I am indeed a work in progress, but am buoyed by the knowl­edge that each day is a new oppor­tu­nity to suc­ceed where I failed yesterday.

And I fre­quently get so wrapped up in daily activ­i­ties and chal­lenges that I for­get to say two sim­ple words: Thank you. Some­times I am appalled by my own lack of appre­ci­a­tion. I take my many bless­ings for granted and neglect to let my grat­i­tude take tan­gi­ble form.

These days, I spend a lot of time pray­ing for the future of the United States, and that our President-Elect be granted wis­dom and the abil­ity to lead effec­tively and with integrity dur­ing the rough days ahead. Every time I think of him, I pray for his safety — for his sake, as well as his family’s and the nation’s. Hav­ing lived through the 1960’s, I fear for his well-being (and with good rea­son, accord­ing to recent news reports detail­ing the num­ber of threats that are made against him every day). I pray for my friends, neigh­bors and col­leagues, ask­ing that they be allowed to keep their homes and jobs. I also pray for my friends who are fac­ing other chal­lenges such as their own ill health or ail­ing loved ones.

Tonight, I have spent quite a bit of time pray­ing for the folks in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, as wild­fires are again rag­ing there and many peo­ple have lost their homes and all of their belong­ings. As you read this, please say a prayer for the fire­fight­ers who are strug­gling to get those fires under control.

Click here to access the list of all par­tic­i­pants and read their thoughts.

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