Home
>
Spirituality
>
Discipline of Prayer: Always Connected

Discipline of Prayer: Always Connected

Every workday, five days a week, I take the light rail into downtown Dallas. Only last week, this routine finally taught me a lesson about prayer.

In case you're not familiar with it a light rail commuter train, it runs on 25,000 volts of alternating current. All of this electricity runs through lines suspended above the tracks. It is transmitted to the train through a spring-loaded arm called a pantograph. Once the energy is on board, it is transformed into the direct current that supplies the locomotive's motors. Without that constant supply of 25,000 volts, the train would go nowhere. That pantograph has to be in constant contact with the high-power lines.

Paul told the Thessalonians, "Pray unceasingly" (1 Thess. 5:17). Part of what that means is that we must continually stay in contact with God, who supplies us with the of spiritual power we need to keep going. In other words, wherever we go and whatever we do, we have to maintain an awareness that we are in the presence of the Almighty.

King David knew of this need. In Ps. 139:7-12, he asks: Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there Your hand will guide me,
Your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to You;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to You.

As a spiritual Being, on limited by time and space, God is omnipresent and omniscient. Nothing happens to us that He doesn't know about, nor is there a place we can go that is beyond His presence.

David's descendant, King Hezekiah, demonstrated his awareness of the same truth by his actions. When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, ordered that a threatening letter be read to Hezekiah and all of Jerusalem, 2 Kings 19:14 reports: "Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord." It is as if Hezekiah were saying to the Lord, " Here, read this!" Then, in the verses that follow, he asks the Lord to do something about it, and the Lord honors his request with an outstanding miracle.

It is true that devotional writers have long emphasized the spiritual discipline called "practicing the Presence." Nicholas Herman (c. 1605-1691), also known as "Brother Lawrence," in what is now known as The Practice of the Presence of God, wrote: That it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. That we are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action, as by prayer in its season. That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of God, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with God, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that God would give him somewhat to suffer, when he should grow stronger" ("Fourth Conversation").

Such a concept has not been invented out of thin air. Jesus himself, just before ascending to the Father, promised his disciples, " I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20). notice that Jesus neither says, "I was with you," nor does he say "I will be with you." he says, " I am with you always." This " I am" seems to run parallel to his statement to the unbelieving Jews: " I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8:58), "not I was." If the parallel is a valid one, Jesus' use of the present tense seems to signify that he is not limited by time or any other constraint on his ability to be aware of our needs and to bless. (After this thought occurred to me, I have found the same analysis in A. B. Bruce's commentary on Matthew in The Expositor's Greek Testament.)

Like the power lines strong above the light rail train, the power is always present and available. But we must make and maintain our connection with that power. With a constant awareness of God's presence, we will include him in every decision we make. We will give more care to where we go, what we do, and what we listen to, knowing that he goes with us, witnesses our actions, and hears what we hear. we will choose our words more carefully-not only the ones that express our petitions to him, but all of our words--realizing that we can not prevent him from listening to us.

And whenever we do pray, whether we offer praise, thanksgiving, petitions, confessions of Sin, or intercessions for others, a constant awareness of God's presence bolsters our confidence that he hears our prayers and will answer them according to his will. Don't let your pantograph droop. Oil its hinges, fix its spring. Stay connected.

* * *

Steve Singleton has written and edited several books and numerous articles on subjects of interest to Bible students. He has been a book editor, newspaper reporter, news editor, and public relations consultant. He has taught Greek, Bible, and religious studies courses Bible college, university, and adult education programs. He has taught seminars and workshops in 11 states and the Caribbean.

Go to his deeperstudy.org for Bible study resources, no matter what your level of expertise. Explore "The Shallows," plumb "The Depths," or use the well-organized "Study Links" for original sources in English translation. Sign up for Steve's free "DeeperStudy Newsletter."

house cleaning company Mundelein ...

In The News:

Uber teen accounts now feature live video streaming from the driver's camera, but encrypted recordings stay on Uber's servers for up to 14 days.

Router firewalls and software firewalls serve different roles in protecting your home Wi-Fi from unwanted traffic and suspicious connections.

A Chrome extension with 70,000 users and a 4.7-star rating began injecting fake update warnings after a threat actor acquired and weaponized it.

Amazon's Alexa+ rolls out free to Fire TV devices across the U.S., but hands-free microphones and stored voice data raise key privacy questions.

Meta's new teen accounts settlement sets a default two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook, plus night mode and school mode restrictions.

The CareCloud data breach exposed Social Security numbers, banking information and medical records belonging to more than 3.75 million people.

Waymo reveals its custom 5-nanometer chip and dual computing systems designed to take over instantly if the robotaxi's primary computer fails.

Identity theft now includes account takeover, phone hijacking and payment card exposure. Here's what to look for in identity theft protection services.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

The FBI and Justice Department seized domains tied to QScan and QTRouter, tools allegedly used by China-linked hackers to breach NASA and other agencies.

Uber Eats drone delivery launches later this year through a Zipline partnership, starting in Dallas and Houston with a goal of one million daily flights.

Medicare Open Enrollment scams start with data broker targeting months before October. Learn why August is the time to remove your personal info.

The World Humanoid Robot Games' crashes show how far the technology still needs to go to be useful, "Survivor" reality TV star and robotics scientist Christian Hubicki says.

X-Humanoid's TianGong Ultra ran 100 meters in 9.32 seconds at Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games, beating last year's winner by more than half.

A tap-to-pay charity scam is turning small $15 or $20 donations into charges of nearly $5,000, with victims losing thousands before they notice.

Kurt Knutsson shares seven emergency preparedness lessons from surviving Hurricane Katrina inside a New Orleans hotel as conditions turned desperate.

A contractor stored credentials in a Google Doc set to "Anyone with the link," and Google Search autocomplete eventually surfaced the password string.

New Orleans 911 uses Carbyne AI to triage repeat auto crash calls, but strict limits keep human call-takers in control of all other emergencies.

A single card skimmer can generate $1 million in stolen funds, and Secret Service video shows criminals installing them in under two seconds.

ChatGPT, Meta AI and Google now use memory, connected apps and past chats to personalize ads and responses in ways most users overlook today.

MagicalAuth by Glide.id uses cryptographic SIM credentials to verify bank logins without sending SMS OTP codes that scammers can intercept or phish.

A humanoid robot named Lightning Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, edging Usain Bolt's record.

An AI agent using Claude AI canceled another person's gym booking after finding a security flaw in the reservation system's authorization checks.

Trump signed a memorandum allowing vetted private U.S. companies to conduct cyber operations against foreign criminal organizations under oversight.

Your Social Security number appeared in a breach, but exposure and identity theft are not the same. Here's how identity restoration actually works.

Discipline of Prayer: Always Connected

Spirituality