What is Prayer?

Prayer is doxology, praise, thanksgiving, confession, supplication, and intercession to God. Prayer is the way to renewal and spiritual life.  Through the grace of God and our disciplined efforts, prayer lifts us up from our isolation to a conscious, loving communion with God in which everything is experienced in a new light. Prayer becomes a personal dialogue with God, a spiritual breathing of the soul, a foretaste of the bliss of God’s kingdom.

When Should We Pray?

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we are told to “pray without ceasing.” Many people take this verse to mean they must pray literally unceasingly. While that is an excellent idea, it isn’t quite possible to pray without ever stopping. What Paul has in mind here is prayer as a regular habit, whereby His people take hold of God, and His promises in all of life. Paul could say this because he has given the example in his letters to fellow believers (1 Thessalonians 3:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:11; Ephesians 1:16; 3:14).

Praying with consistency means having time (or perhaps several times) during your day in which you take time to pray. Use the principle of praying consistently to develop your prayer habits; Paul’s point in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 is that you have a daily practice of prayer.