Our pastor's message today got me to thinking about waiting, ceasing, and ceaseless prayer. When I was teaching Seminary in Zimbabwe years ago I said to one of my classes one day, "Your assignment for next time is to bring me every scripture in the Bible that basically says, 'Wait on the Lord'." They did and we covered all the black boards. It was mind blowing how many times our God says, "Wait".
Sometimes I think we don't think about the fact that in order to wait we have to cease. Busyness does not begat waiting. Before we can effectively wait . . . we must first cease all our activity for a time. When we prepare our hearts for private and/or public worship gatherings, we need to cease and wait on the Lord in prayer for effective preparation of heart for worship.
And of course we know we are challenged in the Word to "pray without ceasing". Ceaseless prayer means we keep ourselves in a perpetual state of spiritual readiness, to pray for any amount of time needed, in the continual now-and-then-ness of God leading us to pray. In Rom 12:12 the King James translates it, "instant in prayer". To be instant in prayer is to be ready any time and any place or circumstance, at a moment's notice. That doesn't take away from our set-aside times for praying, such as Psalm 5:3 mentions, "In the morning, O Lord, I will look up".
Ceaseless praying is a continuous outpouring of our souls so that He can continually manifest Himself in us, and in and through our worship. Worship itself is a continuing and continuously varied conversation with the very one who indwells us. As we worship and pray we must remember that it is, above all, about who God is and what He wants. In the very context of our adoration and praise the body of Christ should always be caught up in intercessory prayer - seeking His presence and power and the spread of the Gospel and salvation of souls. Also, as continuous prayer warriors and worshippers, we must continually pray for sanctification, growing in personal holiness, and for ministry and service of God's church. May we learn to cease and wait with ceaseless praying. mjm
