Have you heard of the ‘Cambridge Seven’? Back in 1885 seven students at Cambridge University felt a call to China with the China Inland Mission. They prayed for one another and supported each other practically as they made preparation to go and serve the Lord overseas. C T Studd is probably the best known of this group of seven. One of this group, not Studd but someone else, was troubled about his indiscipline whenever it came to his daily ‘Quiet Time’. He felt he wasn’t rising early enough to pray and decided that drastic action was needed. He attached one end of some fishing line to his bedclothes and then fixed the other end to the little knob at the back of his alarm clock. Whenever the alarm went off in the morning the fishing line wound itself around the turning knob on the back of the clock lifting his bedclothes off the bed and forcing him to rise. Drastic action indeed! He was taking seriously the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:6 –

‘When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’

Within evangelicalism we have placed great emphasis on the importance of a daily devotional time with God. Yes, it’s important that such a time is built into the daily rhythm of our lives. However, we also need to pay due heed to the words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 when he encourages us, as God’s people, to ‘pray without ceasing.’ How can we possibly do this? In any given day there are things you just have to do. We need to attend to the basic functions of everyday living like washing, dressing, cooking, cleaning, shopping and sleeping. On top of that there is our work or whatever it is that we’re involved in that takes up most of our time – the office, the factory, child-minding etc. So, in the light of all of these duties and responsibilities how can I possibly pray without ceasing?  A time of prayer in the morning is possible but you struggle to see how you could possibly spend more time each day in prayer

Paul was not an impractical person. He was well aware of all that men and women have to attend to in the course of their daily lives. He’s not suggesting that we spend the whole day on our knees or do nothing else but pray. He is suggesting, rather, that we cultivate a life of prayer. He wants us to develop an attitude of prayerfulness in our lives, to be men and women who have faith in Jesus Christ and for whom praying is second nature – the very breath we breathe.

Some years ago, I heard a story which I think illustrates well what Paul is talking about. A minister, in the early 1900s in the Highlands of Scotland, was visiting one of his elders on a Monday morning. The elder, Sandy, was a man of deep faith and his minister assumed that on a Monday morning he would be sitting at his kitchen table with his Bible open thinking over the sermons he had heard the previous day. However, calling at the farmhouse there was no sign of Sandy so his minister had to go out to the moor where Sandy was busy cutting peats. ‘Sandy,’ he declared, ‘I thought I’d find you in the house meditating on the Word and in prayer.’ ‘Sir,’ came Sandy’s reply, ‘I dig and I pray. I pray and I dig.’ That’s it. That’s ‘praying without ceasing.’ If you, like Sandy, have faith in Jesus Christ, endeavour to emulate him. Make prayer a central and vital part of your daily life.

Rev. David Burke