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Pray
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A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan Rejoice always, Pray without
ceasing, In everything
give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 *** If you’re looking for a good book to take with you on vacation this summer, you might go down to the bookstore and peruse the biography section, because that is arguably the most interesting section in the entire place. Biographies are the real-life stories of unusual men and women, and in many cases their entire life’s story, birth-to-death, unfolds in 100 or 200 or 300 pages. But unfortunately nowadays, an unusually high number of these biographies are about celebrities, and there is very little value to those books except as we may discover in them behaviors to avoid. For example, I’m reading the biography right now of baseball slugger Barry Bonds, and I don’t think I’ve ever read about a more self-centered and ill-tempered man. This is why my favorite biographies are missionary stories; because these books tell the positive exploits of remarkable men and women who are living for Christ, often in hostile environments, and who do rather extraordinary things. The history of missions and of individual missionaries is a fascinating study; but sadly, there aren’t very many new missionary biographies being published because the reading public would rather buy books about Barry Bonds and other so-called celebrities. So we have to dip back into some of the older books. Well recently I found a great book written in 1921 by missionary Rosalind Goforth who served in China during very difficult days. It had an unusual title and sub-title: How I Know God Answers Prayer: The Personal Testimony of One Lifetime. The whole book was simply a record of how God had answered prayer over and over again during the long and productive and dangerous ministry of Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth. And as I read this book, I came to appreciate the power of prayer in a fresh way. Rosalind Goforth began the book by saying that she herself had learned the value of answered prayer early if life by listening to some of the stories told her by her family. For example: One (story) that made a specially deep impression upon me was about our grandfather, who as a little boy went to visit cousins in the south of England, their home being situated close to a dense forest. One day the children, lured by the beautiful wild flowers, became hopelessly lost in the woods. After trying in vain to find a way out, the eldest, a young girl, called the frightened, crying ones around her and said: “When Mother died she told us to always tell Jesus if we were any trouble. Let us kneel down, and ask Him to take us home.” They knelt, and as she prayed one of the little ones opened his eyes to find a bird so close to his hand that he reached out for it. The bird hopped away, but kept so close to the child as to lead him on. Soon all were joining in the chase after the bird, which flew or hopped in front or just above, and sometimes on the ground and was almost within reach. Then suddenly it flew into the air and away. The children looked up to find themselves on the edge of the woods and in sight on home.[1] When I read stories like that, it reminds me of how simple
and practical and powerful it is when we pray; and there are a good many
commands in the Bible enjoining us to do just that. One of the shortest little commands
regarding prayer is found in the middle of this tiny paragraph we’re
studying during our three-week series of messages entitled The High Life. Rejoice always, Pray without
ceasing, In everything
give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Now, whenever we read that verse, Pray without ceasing, we ask ourselves two questions: Ø What does this really mean? Ø Can I really do it? Well, I think there are two layers or levels of meaning here. Prayer is a Practice to Cultivate Prayer is a practice to cultivate. To pray without ceasing means that prayer is a recurrent habit. It is something you do incessantly and frequently. Talking to God is a matter of spending definite time in prayer each day and also of talking to Him “under your breath,” as it were, throughout the day. It is repetitious, continual, and perpetual. This is the same Greek word that the ancient people used of a hacking cough. It didn’t really mean “constantly occurring” but “consistently re-occuring.” Now, let me show you something about this word you may not have noticed. As I said last week, it’s probable that 1 Thessalonians is the earliest of Paul’s letters. It was written to a young church as a sort of new converts manual, after he had been driven out of the city of Thessalonica. Notice how he starts his letter in chapter 1: Paul, Silvanus
(Silas), and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace
and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you
all… Notice that word always. I don’t suppose it means that Paul sat in a corner somewhere 24-hours a day doing nothing but saying, “God, thank you for the Thessalonians. Thank you for the Thessalonians. Thank you for the Thessalonians.” But he had perpetual thanksgiving for his time in the city of Thessalonica and for the gracious way in which God used him there to bring a group of people to faith in Christ. And in his regular prayers, he kept thanking God for the survival and vitality of this church in spite of persecution and hostility. Now, let’s keep reading: We
give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers,
remembering without ceasing your work of faith…. Do you see that phrase: Without ceasing. It is exactly the same Greek word that we have in chapter 5. In chapter 1 he says, “I am praying without ceasing.” And in chapter 5, he says, “You pray without ceasing, too.” In other words, “I very frequently stop what I’m doing and think about you and thank God for you. I hope that you very frequently pause and think and thank and pray, too.” Now, look across the page at chapter 2, verse 13: For
this reason we also thank God without ceasing. That is exactly the same Greek
word we have in chapter 5. For this reason we also thank God without
ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us,
you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of
God, which also effectively works in you who believe. Now, look across the page at chapter 3, verse 9: For
what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we
rejoice for your sakes before our God, night and day praying exceedingly that
we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith. And there we have a definition of the phrase without ceasing. It means that we pray night and day, that we pray perpetually, that we pray with great frequency and regularity, that we pray at the drop of a hat, that we pray during our regular times of prayer, but also that we go around praying, as it were, under our breath. One day this week, I needed to find someone to do a particular job at my house that required a specialized skill, and I didn’t know who to call. So I opened the Yellow Pages and saw about 30 different listings under the heading I needed. I had no idea which one to call, so I took a moment and said, “Lord, guide me to the right person.” Then I worked my way through the listings and found out what I could, and then I started making phone calls. I think I found the right person; but I attribute it to the simple act of pausing long enough to whisper a prayer for guidance. That’s a habit I want to give you an example that has convicted me about
this very thing. Many of you may have heard of Dr. Michael Guido of
Metter, Georgia, who is a great pioneer in radio and television work and
whose little program, Seeds from the
Sower, is one-of-a-kind. Well, Dr. Guido is well up in years now, 92-years-old, but he’s still going strong; and he has agreed to be a contributor for an annual volume for which I’m the editor. The other day I was talking with him about this little verse and this is what he said (in his inimitable style): When I wake up in the morning, I say, “Good morning, Jesus! You and I are going to have a great day today. Just have your way with me.” I slip my feet into my slippers and I pray, “Lord, bind my feet with ties of righteousness.” I wash my hands and I pray, “Lord, don’t let my hands touch anything your hands wouldn’t touch today.” I wash my forehead and I pray, “Lord, don’t let me think on anything Your mind wouldn’t think on.” I brush my teeth and I pray, “Lord, wash my tongue. Keep me from saying anything Your tongue wouldn’t say.” I wash my eyes and I pray, “Lord, don’t let me look at anything Your eyes wouldn’t look at.” As I wash my ears I pray, “Lord, don’t let my ears listen to things Your ears wouldn’t listen to.” As I stand before the mirror to see if I’m presentable to leave the bathroom, I pray, “Lord, as that mirror reflects my image, help me today to reflect Thy image.” I walk from the house to the studio and if I find a pine cone on the sidewalk, I’ll pick it up and pray, “Lord, don’t let anything in my life that will cause another one to stumble.” I come into my study and unlock the door and I pray, “Lord, as I unlock the door of my heart, teach me Thy Word today. Help me to live Thy Word. Just live Your life all over again in me.” When I look into the mirror in my study I say, “Michael you’re going forth to reveal Jesus today. Let there be nothing in your life that will disgrace Him or deny Him or defame Him in any way.” And then I go from room to room, wherever the staff work, and I pray for each one in his or her office, then I come back to my study and have my devotions.[2] It’s no wonder that
Michael Guido has been spreading, not only the Gospel message, but optimism
and enthusiasm, like seeds for the better part of a long lifetime. Now, I have a confession to make. The day after Dr. Guido told me that
on the telephone, I came to my office early in the morning to have my
devotions and prayer time, as I’ve been doing for many years. I love my morning devotion time, a
practice I began as a sophomore in college, and for 35 years I’ve been
having my morning devotions and I seldom miss a day. But I have not been starting my day as
Dr. Guido suggested. When I wake up in the morning my
first thought is usually something like this: “Oh my goodness, does my back
hurt! Do I ever feel stiff! Do I ever feel tired!” I stagger to the bathroom and stand
under the hot shower, hoping to limber up my muscles. I grab something to wear in the closet,
then lumber into the kitchen where I’ll eat a bowl of cereal while
watching ten minutes of commercials hoping for one minute of news. Then I drive to my office, trying not
to spill my coffee on the way, and I unlock my office, sit down, open my journal,
and began meeting with the Lord.
But—and here’s the thing—I realized after talking
with Michael Guido that it’s 45-minutes or so into my day before I
consciously talk with the Lord.
Now I’m trying to learn a new habit at mid-life, to wake up in
the morning and as I roll out of bed to say, “Good morning, Jesus! You and I are going to have a great
time today!” In the Old Testament, there is a book called 1 Chronicles that opens with a long series of genealogical listings. I’d like to show you something about that list. Do you know the very first word of the book of 1 Chronicles? It’s the word Adam. First Chronicles begins with a genealogical listing going all the way back to Adam: Adam, Seth, Enosh…. And several chapters later, we come down to the names of the various lineages of Israel; and in 1 Chronicles 5, we come to the descendants of the tribe of Gad. And then in the middle of 1 Chronicles 5, we have this little passage (vv. 19ff): They made war with
the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab.
And they were helped against them, and the Hagrites were delivered
into their hand, and all who were with them, for they cried out to God in the
battle. He heeded their prayer,
because they put their trust in Him. These men were noted in the Old
Testament genealogies because they cried out to God in the battle. These
men prayed in the midst of battle.
They were not in their prayer closets with prolonged leisure moments
of devotion. They were not in
church listening to the soft music of the organ. They were in the fog of war, dodging
flying arrows and flinching from the flashing and clashing of sword and
shield. But somehow, in the midst
of the frenzy of battle, they managed to pray, to call on the Lord—and
He answered them on the spot. He
does the same for us. So praying without ceasing means
that we have developed prayer habits in our lives that are continuously
recurring. And that leads to the
second level of meaning for this term “without ceasing.” Prayer is not only a practice to
cultivate, it is a presence to enjoy. Prayer is a
Presence to Enjoy One evening this week after
supper, Katrina and I sat out on our back porch for an hour or so. We both had our books and magazines,
and I was reading my material and she was reading hers. We didn’t talk very much,
although occasionally I’d look up and mention something from my
reading, or she would do the same.
It’s not that we were sitting there engrossed in an incessant
conversation. We weren’t
even acutely aware of anything in particular about the other person’s
presence, except that we were just there together, near each other, and it
was pleasant. Back when I was graduating from high school, there was a famous missionary who passed away at age 85. His name was Frank Laubach, and he was well-known for two things. The first was because of his lifelong campaign to spread education and literacy. In fact, he was nicknamed “The Apostle of Literacy.” The second thing about him was his personal efforts to do what Brother Lawrence had suggested centuries before, to practice the presence of God. Laubach came to a day in his life in which he determined to train himself to remember how near at hand was His God. He trained himself to consciously pause throughout each hour of the day to remind himself that the Lord was with Him. He suggested that we, too, during our little pauses throughout the day, learn to go to Christ constantly for advice on what to do next and to remind ourselves that He is standing there beside us, near at hand, present always and available to help us. That’s the way it should
always be between us and the Lord.
In his famous book, Walden, Henry
David Thoreau wrote about moving into a little cabin on the shores of Walden
Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts.
He wanted to experiment in living a life of solitude for a couple of
years, and his book about it is one of the great classics in American
literature. One of his chapters
is called house-warming, and he wrote about the joys of having a fire in the
fireplace. He said that as long
as he had a fire burning in the hearth, the house never seemed empty and he
never felt lonely. “I
sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter
afternoon,” he wrote, “and when I returned, three or four hours
afterward, it would still be alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was
gone. It was as if I had left a
cheerful housekeeper behind it.
It was I and Fire that lived there.”[3] As I read that, I thought of the
Children of Israel, traveling through the wilderness with the presence of the
Lord with them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by
night. And in the hearth of our
hearts, when the presence of the Lord is blazing within us like a fire in the
fireplace, there’s no need to ever feel lonely. And how wonderful to be able to enjoy
that Presence and to learn to talk with Him continually! One of the most gifted Christian
writers of the 20th century was Catherine Marshall. She was the wife of a Scottish
preacher named Peter Marshall, who was Chaplain of the United States
Senate. After his sudden death at
a relatively young age, she wrote his biography, A Man Called Peter, and from that moment she was one of
America’s best-known and best-loved writers. One of her books is called Adventures in Prayer, and in it she
describes some of the answered prayers that have changed her life and
others. Catherine said that when she was
a teenager, she longed and dreamed of going to college, but this was
depression time and the West Virginia church where her father served was
suffering financially. Catherine
applied to Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, but even after having
saved and scrimped and sacrificed, she was still short of the needed funds. “One evening,” she
said, “Mother found me lying across my bed, face-down, sobbing. She sat down beside me. ‘You and I are going to pray
about this,” she said quietly.
We went into the guest room and knelt beside the old-fashioned, golden
oak bed, the one that Mother and Father had bought for their first home. ‘I know it’s right for you
to go to college,’ Mother said.
‘I believe God planted this dream in you; let’s ask Him to
tell us how to bring it to reality.’” There, side by side, the two
knelt in the presence of the Lord; and even decades later, Catherine could
still recall the quiet confidence and fresh determination that flowed into
her as she and her mother prayed.
They knew the answer would come, and Catherine went ahead and made
preparations to go to Agnes Scott.
A short time later, her mother received an offer to from the Federal
Government to write a history of their county, and this was enough to provide
the needed funds.[4] W. A. Criswell used to quote a poem on this subject, and he did so without attribution, so I don’t know who wrote it; but it speaks to this very nicely: When you are weary in body and soul Cumbered with many a care When work is claiming its strength-taking toll Make it a matter of prayer. And when you're discouraged, distraught or dismayed Sinking almost in despair Remember there's One who will come to your aid, If you'll make it a matter of prayer. And when you are lost In this world's tangled maze When life seems a hopeless affair Direction will come for all of your ways If you'll make it a matter of prayer.[5] Maybe you have some things today that you need to begin making a matter of prayer. Maybe you’ve already been making some things a matter of prayer; perhaps you’ve been praying for a long time. Well, keep on. Jesus said in Luke 18 that we ought always to pray and not to faint. Unceasing prayer is a practice we cultivate and a presence we enjoy—and nothing on earth can compare with the peace or power of praying without ceasing. So be joyful always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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[1] Rosalind Goforth, How I Know God Answers Prayer: The Personal Testimony of One Lifetime, published in 1921. A printed copy from an online edition.
[2] Transcribed personal interview with Dr. Michael Guido, May, 2006, used with his permission.
[3] Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004), p. 267.
[4] Catherine Marshall, Adventures in Prayer (Old Tappan, NJ: Chosen Books, 1975), pp. 29-30.
[5] http://www.wacriswell.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/Search.Transcripts/sermon/815.cfm, accessed June 6, 2006.