#19, How To Pray Without Ceasing
#19, How to Pray Without Ceasing
By Alvin Petty, retired area minister
I Thessalonians 5: 17 commands, “Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” How can we pray without ceasing? Does it mean we should be uttering a prayer all the time mentally or orally. No, it most assuredly does not mean this, for that would be absurd vain repetition. But prayer without ceasing does mean turning our heart toward God often in our daily lives.
We pray successfully when we do not ask amiss by asking for something to spend upon our selfish pleasures, that is upon our ego needs. Our egos hunger for approval from the world. Ego needs are thus always centered upon objects such as persons, accomplishments, situations things, money, etc. We center upon objects because we are looking for approval. All object or ego centeredness is based upon fear. The preacher wants the successful church so he can have more approval. You may want a new situation to increase your approval rating.
James 4: 3 speaks to ego centered prayer. He says it is asking amiss or missing the mark. He says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your pleasures.”
Praying without ceasing is to be filled with and project compassion. Compassion is the language of God and his universe. Feeling and projecting compassion is the way to pray successfully without ceasing at all times. In the Old Testament it is said, “ Be holy for God is holy!” But Jesus teaches, “Be compassionate for God is compassionate!”
Compassion is the key to praying successfully because our thoughts and emotions have the power to influence matter. The universe was created and is sustained by mind over matter.
Three major experiments in the 90’s proved that our thoughts and emotions can effect our DNA’s behavior instantaneously. In each case, extracted live DNA was taken from a subject’s cells and placed in a vacuum tube and moved from 100 feet to 350 miles away from the subject. Then the subject was exposed to material that evoked emotions that ranged from horror and revulsion to ecstasy, love and compassion. An atomic clock was used to time the response of the DNA’s response to its owners thoughts and emotions. In each case the DNA responded immediately to the subject’s reactions. Feelings of horror and revulsion twisted the DNA into a knotted like mass. Feelings of joy, love and compassion relaxed the DNA into its normal ladder like position.
Prayer and meditation with love and meditation works wonders. We live in a magical, enchanted universe because the Divine Conscious Spirit that created it connects everything together. Quantum physics has demonstrated that our observation actually changes the behavior of sub atomic particles. A photon is ordinarily a wave of light but when we observe it, it becomes a particle. This observation effect was discovered several decades ago. Sincere compassion in believing meditation and prayer can effect the nature in which we live, move and have our being.
An outstanding Tibetan Buddhist monk was asked by a computer scientist and religious and philosophical researcher, Greg Braden, “Is compassion a force of creation or is it an experience?” Thoughtfully, the monk answered with great force, “It is both a force in the universe as well as a human experience.”
I tell you, living in non-judgment of all things with deep compassion is the most exciting adventure we can ever enter into. Do not judge what the answer to your prayer should be. Just live envisioning your prayer as if it is already answered. Live, seeing the answer as if it is current reality. See it in your imagination. Feel it with compassion for all concerned, including yourself. Stay open to all possibilities. Do not judge what exact possibility you should receive. Accept with Thanksgiving whatever comes. Jesus said, “Therefore I say unto you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Walking in compassion and imagining the request as already fulfilled is praying without ceasing.
Let us illustrate this from two other writings.
John 16: 23 says, “And in that day you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly, I say unto you, whatever you ask the Father in my name; He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.” What does it mean to ask in Jesus’ name? And how may your joy be full?
An ancient Aramaic translation of John 16: 23-24 gives explanation of these words and what asking in Jesus name means and how your joy may be full. Aramaic is a corrupted version of Hebrew that Jesus spoke. And it is the language that the Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls used. This translation is taken from the book, Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus. It says, “All things that you ask straightly and directly…from inside my name-you will be given. So far you haven’t done this…so ask without hidden motive and be surrounded by your answer-Be enveloped by what you desire, that your gladness be full.”
Asking in Jesus’ name means asking according to his character, his way of life, his attitudes. As we have said , this means first getting your selfish, fear based ego desires out of the way. Ego repels the power to receive our answers; it is asking with hidden motives and not straightly and directly.
Your joy becomes full by your surrounding yourself with your answer. This is done by practicing the greatest principle in psychology, the “as if” principle. You must live and think always as if you have the answer already, surround yourself with your answer. Do not demand any certain answer. Just live as if you already have all that you need. Surround yourself constantly with this assurance. Envelope yourself with your desires of the health or wealth of Spirit and material things that you need and envelope yourself with the sense and belief that you have what you desire already. This draws the answer, solution to you.
But be open as to what form the answer shall come in and then accept what comes with gratitude. To demand the answer in a certain form causes you to miss it. You must live with the uncertainty of how your answer will come to you but with the certainty that the correct answer that is best for your soul will come. This enables you to live with peace, knowingness, and compassion for all. Being enveloped with compassion is praying with out ceasing.