How to Pray 24/7

How can we pray all day?  I Thessalonians 5:17 encourages us to “Pray without ceasing.”

Have you ever wondered what it looks like to pray without ceasing throughout the day?

Cease means to “bring or come to an end”. This verse indicates we are to pray without it coming to an end.  Thus we can understand it to be that we are to pray continually.

The Greek word used for ceasing in this verse is adialeiptos.  It is an adverb of adialeiptos which in interpreted as uninterruptedly (i.e. without omission).

This seems impossible for us, doesn’t it? Especially if you are like me and are a literal thinker. Perhaps an easier way for us to wrap our heads around this Biblical instruction is to think of continually being in a spirit of prayer:

– our hearts are in tune with the Holy Spirit

– we are listening for His still small voice

– we are continually communicating with Him the things that are on our heart.

Whisper a Prayer in the Morning, a song many of us may have learned as a child, reminds us that we are to keep our hearts in tune to the Lord all day long.  We should be praying and looking for His coming all day long.

How true these words are.  We can pray to our Heavenly Father at any time of the day or night.  He will answer our prayers.  I can almost hear the voices of children singing this song in Sunday School.

Is it really possible to pray all day?

It still seems like an almost impossible task to pray without ceasing.  Several years ago I wanted to try to follow this instruction in my life.  I created a visual aid in the form of a helpsheet that has been a great resource for me. 

The image reminded me of many of the things that I could/should be praying about each day.  As things came up during the day, I had a wonderful visual reminder that the most important thing I could do about any of them was to pray.

Some of the things I wanted to remember to pray about during the day were:

Share what’s on my heart

– God wants to hear what is on my mind and my heart – what is joyful or what is hurtful.

Praise

– All day long there are things we can praise the Lord for – a safe trip to work, food for lunch, helpfulness of a co-worker, etc.

Forgive

– I need to forgive others and sometimes it is hard.  I know that God will help me forgive if I ask Him too.

Repent

– I am far from perfect and need forgiveness from my Heavenly Father throughout the day.

Requests

– Has someone asked us to pray for them today? Is there something we need God’s guidance with?

Needs

– God is faithful to provide our needs and it is appropriate for us to ask Him to do so.

Sing

– I love praise & worship music.  I may not have a beautiful voice, but I love to lift my voice in praise and I know God is pleased when I do so.

Blessings

– It is so easy for us to miss the blessings that we receive from God each day.  This serves as a reminder to look for the little blessings as well as the big blessings.  Thank the Lord for them continually.

Listen

– Is God speaking to you? We need to listen for His still, small voice.

Worship

– We can worship God for His beautiful creation as we drive to and from work.

Thanks

– How can we not thank God for all He is and all He does for us and our loved ones each and every day.

Good Night

– How sweet it is to close the day with a little more time with our Heavenly Father as we lay our head down on our pillow.

I hope the list above gives you some ideas for making continual prayer a part of your day.

My Pray 24/7 helpsheet had a dual purpose for me.  I created spaces on the back where I could add inspirational things or specific things that I wanted to pray about that week. Sometimes I simply wrote them on the sheet.  Other times, if I found them online,  I printed them and cut and pasted them to the page.  I generally used one sheet for a whole week.

Some of the things I added were:

– A Bible verse for the week

– A quote that inspired me

– Special prayer requests shared with me that week

You can use the spaces for anything that you want – they are not titled for that very reason.

Using the Pray 24/7 Helpsheet

The best thing about the Pray 24/7 helpsheet was that I could take it with me wherever I went.

If I was at work, it was on my desk (I needed the visual reminder to be in a spirit of prayer).  If I wanted to I could fold it up and carry it in my pocketbook (not such a great idea for me since I needed the visual reminder and it was hidden from my view in my pocketbook), but this works for some people.

Now I work at home, and my life has a totally different routine. I use a Prayer & Praise Journal for all of the things that I use to write on the back of this helpsheet.

Oftentimes I still use this form in addition to my Prayer & Praise Journal.  It works really well when I am traveling and don’t carry my Journal with me.  I also use it occasionally just to help me refocus my heart and mind on continual prayer for a week or two. I just add the pages to my Journal at the end of the week.

I have framed and placed the beautiful 24/7 Prayer image on our wall and walk by it numerous times a day. It serves as a wonderful reminder that I should be consistently in a spirit of prayer.

Use it daily, weekly or monthly

Although I used my Pray 24/7 as a weekly form, it could be used as a daily or monthly sheet form. You fill in the date(s). Additionally, it could be laminated and used over and over again. How would it work best for you?

If you would like to give the Pray 24/7 helpsheet a try, a digital copy is available to my subscribers on the Printables page. If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe to receive our emails below.  Your welcome email will include the password to the Printables page.  We send out only a few newsletters each month to our subscribers.

If you are interested in creating a detailed and personalized Prayer Journal of your own, please check out our Simple Prayer Journal series.