Breathing Life into Your Prayers: The Practice of Praying Nonstop

Episode Overview:

In this enlightening episode, Charlie Mitchell dives deep into the concept of constant prayer, drawing a compelling parallel between the natural act of breathing and maintaining an ongoing conversation with God. Inspired by the remarkable discipline of free divers and anchored in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Charlie challenges the conventional boundaries of prayer, encouraging a seamless integration of prayer into the daily rhythm of life.

Practical Application:
- Keep It Natural: Transform prayer from a formal task to an effortless, continuous dialogue with God throughout your day.
- Keep It Steady: Integrate prayer into every aspect of your daily routine, from the moment you wake to the moment you rest.
- Focus When Needed: Just as we occasionally focus on our breath to recenter, dedicate moments to deepen your prayer life, enhancing your spiritual lung capacity.

Key Takeaways:
1. Prayer is not an isolated task but a lifestyle that should be as natural and constant as breathing.
2. By adopting a mindset of continuous prayer, we align closer with God's presence in all facets of life.
3. Focused prayer sessions serve as spiritual breathing exercises, strengthening our capacity to maintain constant communion with God.

Relevant Scripture:
1 Thessalonians 5:17 - "Pray without ceasing."

Conclusion:
Charlie Mitchell's exploration of nonstop prayer as a vital life force akin to breathing invites listeners to reconsider their approach to prayer. This episode not only demystifies the daunting command to "pray constantly" but also offers practical strategies for weaving prayer into the fabric of everyday life. As we learn to breathe life into our prayers, we discover the power of unceasing communication with God, ensuring that our spiritual oxygen levels are always at their peak.

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the Charlie Mitchell teaching and audio experience.

Charlie Mitchell: 0:14

I am a huge fan of the ocean and it's something about the ocean that kind of brings me some peace, calm, just, it just brings me a lot of joy. And maybe that's because I'm a Floridian and grew up, you know, near the beach and grew up on an island that allows me to just have this affinity with the ocean. And there's all kinds of things. There's all these, scuba divers and there's all these water sports and all these different things that people do in and around the ocean. But one group of people really fascinates me and it is the people that are known as free divers. Now we all know that you will die if you don't breathe. within a few minutes. Two, three, maybe four minutes. You're out of here if you don't take a breath. But there are free divers who go underwater for a very long time. They go to deep depths without any scuba gear, any snorkel gear. And they're able to do this up to 10, maybe 11, 12 minutes. without ever taking a breath. And that's just intriguing to me that they're able to live or enjoy something where it just seems like you're putting your life at risk if you don't regularly just inhale and exhale. But for us as Christians and believers, how long do you go without Having prayer as a natural part of your life. How long do you go? Are you was a Prayer free diver where you're just diving into life in the tasks and activities never really taking a moment to inhale or exhale and just have that moment of connection with God first Thessalonians 5 17 Is one of the most distressing passages of scripture in the entire Bible. Why? Because, even though it's a simple exhortation. Man, rejoice always. Pray constantly. And in everything, give thanks. This is God's will for your life. Pray constantly is not one of those types of verses that just brings all kinds of warm, fuzzy feelings. Pray constantly like, Paul, I got stuff to do. I got a life. I got things I need to handle. I need to take care of. You can't really expect me to pray constantly. So I literally looked it up and that's exactly what it means. No breaks, no rest, no intermission. continuously always be praying. Now, when we hear that immediately, there's gonna be a question that comes into your mind. How am I supposed to do that? There's no way in the world with all the things I have going on in my life that I'm going to be able to manage praying all the time. Alright, so let me ask you a question. Do you feel like you're managing all kinds of complexity and just a lot of things in your life? Do you feel like you're juggling a lot of different worlds? What I mean by that, do you have a work life, home life? Friendships and relationship life. Do you feel like you've got all these different buckets or compartments that are separated all over your life and you're just trying to do your best to juggle them all, hold all the pieces together? I relate to that because many of us feel that way. We feel like we're carrying so many things. So when you hear a passage of scripture that says something like, pray constantly, it feels like God wants to just dump more stuff on your never ending to do list that you already feel behind on. But that's not what this passage is meant to do. That, that, the reason this passage exists is not to make you feel guilty or to burn you out or to cause you to have more anxiety. It's actually going to help you to simplify something that you probably had a hard time wrapping your mind around all this time. Too many of us treat prayer like it's a task to be completed. Rather than an integrated part of life, we don't treat it like it's the breath that we breathe. And that's what the distinction we need to begin to make in our life when we think about prayer. It is not a task that you add to your to do list. It is integrated into everything that you do. So, watch this. Dallas Willard had an interesting quote that can help us differentiate between this task and a lifestyle of prayer. Here's what he says. Don't seek to develop a prayer life. Seek a praying life. A prayer life is a segmented time for prayer. You'll end feeling guilty that you don't spend more time in prayer. Eventually, you'll probably feel defeated and give up. But a praying life or a prayer lifestyle is a life that is saturated with prayerfulness. You seek to do all that you do with the Lord. So. Let's reframe this passage. Let's, let's, let's reframe it. Rather than going, okay, I gotta pray constantly, which means I gotta be doing this thing all the time and I don't know how I'm gonna fit it in. Is there something that you do right now all the time? Is there something that you do constantly? Is there something that you do nonstop? And there is. I talked about it at the very beginning. It's breathing. This whole time you've been sitting here with me and I've been with you, both of us have been, all of us have been doing what? Breathing constantly, never stopping, never taking a break. We're not free diving right now. We're not in an environment where it's like I have the luxury of not taking a breath. You and I have both just been inhaling and exhaling, having this time where it's just ongoing naturally. What if we put in that same passage of scripture, breathe constantly, breathe constantly, and that's the exhortation. That's the encouragement. What if that's how we thought about our prayer life, rather than it being, Oh, okay, I got to set, set aside time, five minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, I don't never have enough time to everything you did. Had an aspect of prayer in it because you were always going to be breathing in that moment. You ever go to work and not breathe? You ever go home and not breathe? You ever hang out with your kids and your family members or connect with any, and you're not breathing? Absolutely not. You're constantly breathing. So, why wouldn't we constantly have prayer as an element that fuels everything and connect it with everything that we're doing at any given moment. Alright, so how do you pray constantly? How do you pray constantly? And I want it to be just like breathing. So here's the first thing I would recommend for you to do. First thing is keep it natural. That's going to be the hardest part for many of us. For many of us, we think about prayer in so formal of terms. We talk in a certain tone. We have to be in a certain space. We have, it has to be a certain amount of time. We have to use even certain language, but when you're breathing, what is it? It's very natural. It changes based on the exercises and the things that you're doing in the moment. But basically, it's ongoing. So if you can keep that thing natural, and what I mean is, man, just keep it really simple. Don't, don't overthink prayer all the time. When you get in your car, just say, Lord, be with me as I'm driving. If you're going into a meeting, Lord, shepherd me, give me the wisdom I need. Or maybe even a breath prayer that says, you know, Lord, thank you for being here with me in this moment. Those are all things that it just becomes natural to you rather than it becoming some very formalized or structured exercise that you're going back and forth through. Alright, second thing I would say is this. Keep it steady. Keep it steady. Okay? Don't just set it aside from everything else that you have going on in your life. But bring prayer with you everywhere you go, whether it's you rolling out of bed in the morning, it's getting into bed at night, whether it's at the meals that you eat, whether it's connecting with people, whether it's before you make a text message. What have you even connected a prayer to every text message that you send or receive or phone call you receive? And what does it do? It integrates it into the regular everyday habits of our life rather than keeping it separate into spiritual moments. Times and places. When we keep that thing steady, it becomes a natural part of who we are and how we live our lives. Third thing I would say is this. There are times where you do need to focus. Have you ever heard about people doing breathing exercises? Breathing exercises help us to kind of reset if we're feeling anxious. Sometimes when you get really upset or overwhelmed, some people stop breathing. Like they don't realize they've slowed their own breathing down. And there's other moments where people are breathing very rapidly because they're overwhelmed and they're anxious and whatever. And they, and what therapists or counselors or people would say is like, Hey, you need to remember or focus on your breathing. And then what does that do? It helps our bodies to re center. It's the same with prayer. Sometimes you need to focus on your prayer. Like, okay, ho, man, let me really get a little time with Jesus. Let me really tap into the presence of God in this moment. What does that do? It kind of resets you to go, oh, okay, I'm good. I know where I am. God is here with me. I'm not lost. I'm not forgotten. I'm not forsaken. And I can, I can keep going. So there are times where you can do that in order to build your prayer, what capacity. So when we think about those free divers who go deep down into the ocean and they don't have to take this big breath and they, their lung capacity is different than most people. And for many of us, we don't have that kind of prayer capacity. We don't have the prayer capacity that allows us to go in and out of these environments where there's going to be, you need to be praying constantly so that you can develop that sense of connections and communion with God. That's how you breathe constantly. And that's how you're going to begin to pray constantly as well.