Jury's Out" A couple of hours ago, the following post went up on an obscure blog entitled "Let's Get Lifted" (I know, right?), purportedly from a Christian "lifter": Today we are going to talk about some of the lies and mistakes Christians make as they attempt to exercise the Christian disciplines of fasting and prayer. The first thing to realize is that the idea of a Christian being able to “pray without ceasing” comes from Jesus’ warning in Matthew 6:5. So basically, if we are to be Christian athletes of prayer then we must be able to pray without ceasing. But let’s take a look at what this “without ceasing” could mean: 1. Praying without ceasing will not take up our whole life, like the life of an athlete who spends every waking moment preparing for a race. Just as an athlete’s devotion and practice of the sport can bring him to the very front of his field and be seen by his fans, so should our devotion to prayer bring us to the front of prayer. So if you have any desire at all to spend time with God in prayer, you must be committed to regular and frequent prayer, even if your prayer life is not as exciting as the sport of basketball or football. 2. There is no one who prays constantly. Not one. Not even God, Who prays day and night and is always available to hear prayer. Even when the people of Israel cried out for help against Pharaoh, their cries went straight to the throne of God (Exodus 5:17), never ceasing to be heard. So if prayer is our sport, no one can truly give a good account of themselves when it comes to prayer until they have reached the limit of what they know God can hear. 3. We can hear the Lord speaking in our prayers more clearly when we pray without ceasing. The more we “fast” from doing prayer, the harder it will be to hear from God. But if we exercise prayer often, God will teach us how to hear the voice of God in our hearts through our daily prayers. This will help us grow in our ability to know God more intimately. Therefore, we must practice “praying without ceasing” and be alert to all the ways the Lord will speak to us through the process. 4. Prayer without ceasing is our only way to draw closer to God and become more like Him. Prayer gives us one of the best ways to know God’s love and power for us. The more we pray, the more we can be like God. So if we want to know God and become like Him, we must not give up any time in which to pray, but rather give it all away as we learn to love our God with our whole heart, and seek to become more like Him. So if you see Christians at the gym who are only there for a week or two, they need to spend their time praying, talking to God, and seeking Him with all their heart and soul (James 1:5). What you don’t want to see is the Christian who has gotten out of the habit of prayer. They won’t be praying as much as they should, and if they are not careful, God will shut them out. 3. The post goes on to make a series of claims about prayer that are not only ridiculous on their face (e.g., "What you don't want to see is the Christian who has gotten out of the habit of prayer"), but are so far from the actual teaching of Scripture that any reader is left wondering how the author is ever able to discern the "right way" of praying at all: Prayer itself requires a great deal of “practice” in order to become habitual and natural in our daily lives. We can be a great athlete at praying when we are young and inexperienced. But just as an athlete’s practice is designed to improve his performance in all areas, so too our practice of prayer should be designed to improve our awareness of God, and as a result, to grow in the desire to draw closer to God. And we have a problem today. Our problem is that many of us are so out of practice in the area of prayer that we do not know what we are doing. We know what to do (i.e., what to say and when to say it), but we do not know how to really “talk” to God, as if we were talking to a friend and not a stranger. Therefore, the most important practice of prayer is constant meditation upon the word of God—the Bible. This meditation must become our habit and daily practice. This practice must become a part of every part of our day so that as much as possible we will be hearing, speaking, and growing in our capacity to pray. Then it will be second nature to think of prayer whenever we have a free moment, no matter what the task at hand. 4. The writer goes on to exhort the writer of the original post to "put down your ball, and listen to what God has to say to you through all the other balls that are being hit around you": God desires to speak to you in all situations, but often in our lack of knowledge or practice we miss it. So the first thing we must do is learn to “listen.” And when we learn to do this, then we will be able to pray without ceasing. In addition to doing a daily meditation on the Bible, which we should do for at least a half hour every day, we should also develop our capacity to listen to others. If someone else is talking or communicating with us, whether it be at work or in the local market, we must listen carefully and pay attention. When we hear a friend speak to us in our ear we are always listening. That is, we are listening and being active in listening so that we can respond. We learn to do this naturally by being in close fellowship with God and others. So we should be practicing listening to other people and developing the habit of prayer without ceasing. And as a result of this practice, we will begin to hear God speaking to us through the circumstances of our lives. 5. I'm going to need to ask the owner of the blog in question for permission to republish his post, but I hope that's not a problem. As our churches become more and more like gymnasiums, one wonders where our pastors will fit in (if they even get the chance to have a "seat"). I guess I never realized just how much sports was tied in to the Evangelical church. Makes me want to ask what makes this blog different from all the other sports blogs out there - just curious. If I were to have a little more time I would sit down with this blog and ask this person some questions - but I suspect he's gone too far down the rabbit hole of his own little personal mission statement. If it is you, can you clarify a few things for me? What is meant by not ceasing praying, but always doing God's will? How do you know God's will? How is it not being the Christian athlete without ceasing? There is nothing in the Bible about ceasing to pray or other disciplines to make us closer to God. It may sound like that, but it's really all about love and it's all about God's will. Why can't we know what God's will is? Again, how is it being the Christian athlete without ceasing? How do you pray when you pray? Do you sit and meditate on the Bible or do you meditate on your own and pray to God, knowing you are going to hear God's voice? What do you mean by meditate on the Bible? Do you read a verse or do you pray by asking for forgiveness, and then thanking God for helping you, and then thanking him for being there when you are happy, sad, suffering pain etc? Do you pray with your eyes open or closed? Do you close your eyes and ask God to forgive you of your sins, to wash you, and cleanse your spirit, and then thank Him for His love? Why? How? Etc? P.S. I do want to thank you for asking me this, this post has been very helpful to me. I am the one that posted the original thing because I have been reading some other posts and this guy sounds quite fanatical. At first glance it would be easy to look at this as some kind of fundamentalist Christianity that is taking over the church. I'm not a fundamentalist Christian (at least I don't know any that I like), but there does seem to be a growing number of people out there that are so anti-anything that is not fundamentalist that it just kind of leaves me puzzled. It is not healthy. Why is it not healthy? "How can you tell the difference between the fanatical and the genuine fanatic?"(Dostoevsky, Idiot) I am thankful for the questions. They prompt me to think through the post and see things I missed. Thank you. When you pray without ceasing (without pausing to think) you will feel like you do in sports. You will be able to talk to God as if he were your best friend who could read your thoughts, feel your emotions, and experience your pains and joy, while you stay "calm," "cool," and move onto the next move without pausing. You will develop an intimate relationship with God and be able to talk with Him in