Goodness, Grounded: Day 4 ~ First Thought in Morning Light

To Pray Without Ceasing

There is a warm glow in my room when the sun comes up. The first rays come straight through the window on my side of the room, pure light softened through the white translucent shades my husband put up when we moved in. This morning light is one of the most profound comforts I have found in this house. It envelopes me again and again each new day, like a dream, a warm and wonderful one. I want to linger there a while.

My first thought is to pray a simple prayer thanking God for this beauty and this home. I ask Him to be with me, to guide me in my interactions with my husband and my kids, and to help me give my attention to worthy things. At this point, I am still under my covers and just barely awake. My hair is sideways and my face is still smooshed against my pillow. If I close my eyes again for a moment too long, I will slip back into sleep. That happens less often now than it used to, but I am also not waking with small children in the night anymore.

I toss the covers back and shuffle to the bathroom to start my morning. I don’t say anything out loud, but prayer is still part of it. I shower and I am cleansed. I ask quiet (or shall we say silent) questions in my heart like: What does faithfulness look like today? What are the things I must get done? God, will You help me make good use of my time? At this point, I am no longer at risk of falling back asleep, and I take my next practical steps to prepare for the day.

While I’m brushing out my wet hair and applying my moisturizer, I am thinking about my kids—trying to tease out in my mind what each might need from me today. Do I need to have a surprise phone check-in? Sometimes one needs to see if the teen folks are honoring the house rules. Should I follow up on the conflict two of the kids had last night? Yes, I should start a conversation about that on the way into town today. I ask God for wisdom and help, because I know first hand how much I need it.

A few weeks ago, my friend Lynne asked me to share with her what my “prayer life” looks like as a busy mom. I laughed to myself because my “prayer life” is the same as my regular life. It was an honest question, and I know she really just wanted to get some ideas for how to both be a present mom and also get some traction in prayer…well, the secret is: 90% of the time, I pray while I’m doing other stuff. Prayer does not have to be formal to accomplish something important in our lives. 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 says,

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

To pray without ceasing is to answer an invitation God makes to each one of us—to recognize that He is with us in everything we are doing; the mundane, normal, everyday stuff. Prayer opens us, our hearts and our spirits, to receive from Him, and there is a live connection there. God is really listening. He really knows everything about us, our motivations, our thoughts, and our longings. I have come to believe that acknowledging Him through these, maybe slightly weird conversations in my brain, actually accomplish something rather important in my life.

While I’m acknowledging Him, He is helping make my paths straight. Proverbs 3:6

I believe there is a time to formally regard the holiness and power of God in awe and reverence and times when prayer is a deliberate, sit-down kind of thing, but there is also a great need for believers to recognize we have access to fellowship with God through Jesus and it is not required that we participate in formal rituals or specific religious practice at all times in order to tend that connection.

God is not waiting for us to say the perfectly right words, the perfectly right way. He is inviting us to talk to Him right where we are, while we are in motion in the course of our real everyday lives.

I have come to believe, that every single time we acknowledge God it benefits us.

Acknowledging God is a proactive thing we can do to invite His Spirit to be at work in us. This might sound like a small thing, but it’s actually a big thing to posture our hearts to honor God and be ready to receive from Him. It is a big thing that we would choose to both invite and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to do in us what He wants to do. This is how lives are transformed in small but meaningful ways, in ordinary homes, on ordinary days.

When I first decided to follow Jesus as a teenager, there was a song I used to sing during my youth group worship time, and the words stick with me to this day. It’s probably been the refrain I’ve returned to more than any other. For those of you who listen to the audio version of this post, I’m going to sing it for you now.

Soften My Heart (Rademaker/Park)

Soften my heart with oil, Open my eyes to see
Fill me with understanding, Soften my heart to receive

Don’t let my heart be fallow, Don’t let my heart be hard
Water me with Your Spirit, Soften the ground of my heart

I want all that you have for me, Jesus all that you have for me
Open my understanding, Soften my heart to receive
I want all that you have for me

When we have an openness to God, to do whatever He wants, whatever His will is, and we pray these through-the-day prayers to acknowledge Him, seek His wisdom, and make our small daily decisions with Him as our guide, we can expect to find all that He has for us.

Ephesians 3:16-19  “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”