Pray All the Time

I received this message in an email from my mom & thought I'd share:

Pray All The Time!
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (The Message Bible)

Dear Friends,
It was late and my eleven-year old son was already thirty minutes past his bedtime so I was not on-board for a deep theological discussion. I have discovered however that these moments tend to arrive whether I think the timing is perfect or not. We had been reading through Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonica for the past few nights and now we came to this strong mandate from Paul:

Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens.

I don't think that's possible, Mom, my son said.

What's not possible? I asked, wondering if he was referring to coming home from school without "half the playing field" in his tennis shoes.

I don't think you can be cheerful no matter what happens, he said. I have never seen anyone cheerful in Math class. I think if you were very cheerful the teacher would be suspicious.

I smiled at the thought.

I definitely don't think you can pray all the time. I mean, how can you pray at the same time as you are eating or singing? he asked.

That could get messy, I agreed.

I think the last part is the worst though, he said. I can't imagine thanking God for being hit in the eye with a dodge ball.

I don't think it's about isolating one or two verses, Christian, I said. I think it's about understanding the whole heart of God's message.

OK, Mom, I have no idea what you mean, he said with a sleepy grin.

Alright, I said, Let me try and explain myself. Imagine that I was trying to tell you the lyrics of a song. If I just said to you-"wretch like me" you might wonder what I'm talking about. If I followed it up with, "no less days" you might look for your father assuming I needed a nap.

What does that have to do with the Bible though? he asked.

Well, if I only gave you a few lyrics from the hymn "Amazing Grace", the song makes no sense but when you sing the whole song, it's wonderful. I said.

What does that have to do with what we just read? he asked.

Well, if you just read those three verses from one book of the Bible they are hard to understand until you read the whole story.

Can we talk more about this in the morning, Mom? Christian asked.

We can, I said. Goodnight, I love you.

I love you, Mom.

Do you ever feel like my son? You read an instruction like, "pray all the time" and think, Well, I'd love to do that but I just don't think it's possible.
Trust me, I understand. If you had asked me when I was in my twenties or thirties to describe my spiritual life, I would have told you that I loved to read God's Word and to worship with other believers but I found prayer a BIG challenge. As life moved on and I became a mom, life became much more bottom line. I didn't have the time or energy to think of the "right" words to say, I just poured my heart out to my Father, trusting that His love for me would hear beyond my exhausted words to my heart. Although my prayers were seldom eloquent in those sleep deprived early days, a new relationship was born between my Father and me. I knew that I was received and accepted and deep in my spirit, I felt loved.

Now, "pray all the time" makes sense to me, in fact, it is life to me. Whether I am stuck in traffic on the way to school or standing in line in the grocery store, I live in my Father's presence, knowing that He cares about every detail of my life.

I pray that for you today. I pray that you know deep in your heart that you are loved and welcomed into the heart of your Father just as you are. The most articulate prayer or a simple Help! when they come from a trusting heart are music to our Father's ears. That really is "amazing grace"!