“Always” is a word that I have used sparingly in my business writing as it connotes a certainty; without exception. But in studying and teaching the Word of God just the opposite is true. What God has said is “always” true and there are “no” exceptions. That was brought home to me once again the other morning as I was looking up something in Romans and a well-known verse caused me to pause and ask myself a couple of questions.
Rom 1:9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,
Early on in my Christian walk this statement of Paul’s used to confuse me. I wondered how in the world one could ever pray without ceasing, how would you ever get anything done? But I sat down one day and took that verse apart in the Greek and it gave me some insight into Paul’s meaning. The other morning was a good reminder.
The word he used for “without ceasing” is adialeiptos, which reflects the thought of “incessant” heart pain. But it doesn’t mean “unbroken continuity,” rather it means without the omission of any occasion. And then he underlined that thought with the word “always;” diapantos, which carries the idea being of a continuous practice carried on without being abandoned. And Paul went so far in underlining that statement by preferencing it with… For God is my witness.
That got me to thinking again about how so often we take a casual approach to prayer. Perhaps if we were more specific in our prayers and offered them with more intensity we might see the results that Paul got. His statement here was certainly not just a flippant promise, it was a specific, solemn promise to pray for the Christians in Rome without ceasing; with incessant heart pain.
Do we have that same approach in our prayer life? Well, for myself I have to admit that there are times when my “promises” to God have been subsequently “abandoned” because they were not made out of incessant heart pain. I have made the commitment to pray for someone, only to promptly become distracted and fail to follow through until my next quiet time when the Holy Spirit reminds me. That’s not what Paul had in mind.
As I read verse 9 again the other morning I once again pondered how do we pray without out ceasing for something God has placed on our heart. I got this picture in my mind of when you have a cold and you get that tickle in your throat and the urge to cough. Sometimes it seems to come almost constantly and at other times it just just comes up unexpectedly. That’s sort of how I picture a commitment to pray without ceasing. It’s like that tickle in your throat that comes up during the day and you need to stop and respond. And so I sort of visualized the Holy Spirit as that tickle, reminding me to pray for that person or that situation. In other words, He doesn’t want me to pray with unbroken continuity, rather He wants me to pray when He reminds me. And that isn’t going to happen if I disregard that tickle in my throat, that urging in the spirit to remember my commitment to pray for that person or that situation.
Praying without ceasing is just praying every time we are reminded, just like clearing that tickle in your throat with a cough; sometimes it takes a light cough and sometimes a heavy one. But…. if we aren’t listening for His voice we will never get that tickle in the spirit. And that means that we are continually practicing without abandon.
And as I contemplated that thought I had to give some serious thought to how Paul opened that verse. Do my promises to pray carry the same commitment that Paul’s did… For God is my witness.