I love to pray. Whether for daily meals or special gatherings, at the close of intense phone conversations or in the face of distressing news, Spirit-led words arise within and through me. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we’re invited to “pray without ceasing.” Ideally, prayer regulates and sustains our lives, like breathing, and we’re urged to make prayer our home.
Lutherans excel at scripted prayers, printed or projected for worship and recited together. Formal liturgical prayer grounds us, creating a sense of solidarity, commonality and community as we intone petitions together. Sharing the Lord’s Prayer at each service offers a homecoming, a rootedness in Scripture and a connection to faithful ones throughout the ages. Such prayers define a sturdy foundation via time-honored words and rhythms.
Nevertheless, praying without ceasing invites us within and beyond that. How do we shape our lives such that each moment becomes prayerful, praising and God-centered? It seems impossible. Human frailties and foibles unite to distract us from fixing our eyes on Christ’s face. Yet, the Spirit’s invitation beckons and persists: pray without ceasing!
Intercessory prayer holds the power to change others’ lives and to change our own. After a messy breakup, I felt convicted to pray both for my former boyfriend and the friend who was now dating him. At first, I prayed because I thought I should, with an edge of resistance and grumbling. Days passed. Lifting these two by name became both routine and a commitment. Weeks later, however, I discovered that amid the praying, I had been changed. Anger and hurt had faded, and I truly wanted God’s best for them.
Prayer in Jesus’ name imparts power for transformation. It touches loved ones and communities through the Spirit’s unseen yet mighty movements, and it galvanizes our own actions and hearts to participate in the outworking of God’s will. Our world today cries out for healing, loving care and transforming hope. Your prayers make a difference, and your active, God-guided responses to those prayers are equally needed.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we’re invited to “pray without ceasing.” Ideally, prayer regulates and sustains our lives, like breathing, and we’re urged to make prayer our home.
This year is pivotal for the ELCA’s leadership. Many synodical bishops will be elected, and the gathered Churchwide Assembly will identify new individuals to serve as secretary and presiding bishop. I invite you to be fervent and intentional in prayer as you lift up these discernment processes. May those elected be deeply grounded in Jesus Christ and in his word. May they be gifted and prepared for such a time as this, to serve, pray and lead through turbulent seasons, while enfleshing and trusting deeply in God’s good news. And may we serve, lead, pray and live faithfully beside them, offering support and grace.
As a word lover, praying spontaneously comes easily to me, which can be intimidating to those new to the world of prayer. Working with college students, I encourage them to think of prayer as talking to God as we would to a best friend. We open places of intentional communication with Jesus through the language of our hearts.
I’ve occasionally led an activity asking people to think outside the box about prayer. Can prayer be shouted, sung, whispered, danced? It can. When we walk in nature and, through bare feet on late-spring grass, savor the beauty of God’s creation, can that, too, become a prayer of gratitude? Yes. When I touch someone dear to me with tenderness or pet my cat with full attention, may that also be prayer of thanksgiving and delight? I trust that our Loving Shepherd smiles and nods yes!
Open your spirit to the ways in which your very life can become a prayer. Whether through traditional, word-based prayers or via creative, artistic or embodied ones, you are God’s voice, you are Christ’s body. You are the cherished vessels by which the Spirit invites new seeing, surprises and delights, upends and ignites, and beautifully and blessedly incites change to draw our world ever closer to our Redeemer’s dream for the earth. Pray without ceasing! And take courage to act with mighty, life-changing grace, as those prayers enflame and embolden you.
