Time Gaps

The Apostle Paul in the his closing remarks to the members of Thessalonia, Paul gave a ‘proverb-like’ series of imperatives. In Bible college one of my professors called them ‘spiritual one-a-day’s’. 

These one-a-day’s are also known as commands. As I mentioned, they are written in the imperative tense. They are surrounded and led by a list of emphatic words: “always, always, unceasingly, everything, do not, do not, all, every, wholly.” There are 5 imperatives located just in verses16-20 alone. Each of them are written with a modifier: 

16— rejoice evermore

17— pray without ceasing

18— grateful spirit 

19— quench (do not) the Spirit

20— despise (not) prophetic utterances

Like we focused on in our last post: rejoicing always sounds great—lean in! This is a short life and we have everything to live for because we live for the life to come. Why sweat the small stuff?! But: stress happens, burdens continue, worries haunt us, and there are a limitless unforeseen amount of problems and even tragedies.

Believe it or not there is a formula for that. A formula in the text itself, which ties right back into our overall context of emphatic terms and imperatives. We find it in Philippians 4.6— “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

What should we care (worry) about? nothing. What should we pray about? everything.How in the world is this possible? Pray about everything? I would be praying all day long!’ Exactly! Our prayer life of 2, or 4, or even 10 prayers a day aren’t cutting it. That is why 1 Thessalonians 5.17 says—“Pray without ceasing.” Philippians 4.6 continues answering the questions: What should we care about?  nothing.What should we pray about? everything.

This makes what Paul said make sense— “Pray without ceasing.” Literally— unceasing prayer— let’s break that down a bit…

The words “without ceasing”— (adialeiptōs) is an adverb, derived from: ‘not’; ’across’; and ‘to leave’. So literally: nothing left between. In the 1st century Greeks used it as: ‘without any unnecessary interval (time-gap)’. The word “pray” here is (proseuchesthe). It comes from 2 words: one means ‘towards, exchange’; and the other means ‘to wish or pray’. So literally means: ‘to exchange wishes.’ Greeks used it in interaction, as in ‘pray tell, where are you going?’ 

We come up with the phrase-defintion: “To interact without any time gaps.” 

This is going to be a leap for some of you and a refresher for those who have come through some discipleship… Prayer is to be a dialogue—not a voice mail.We interact with the Lord by trading human wishes, (requests, thoughts, feelings, and ideas) for His wishes (will and answers). This happens as He imparts faith (spiritual discernment) to us. An Ethiopic version says— “pray frequently.” But that is not what this says. It literally says— ‘Pray without intermission.’ No time-gaps in other words. I’m reminded what Paul said in Romans 12.12— “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;”. Meaning— ‘always at the ready’.

Our wants and needs are continual, so our connection to The Source should be as constant as our wants and needs. Unless of course, we really believe we can live without Him. 

Why wouldn’t we want to talk to the one we love? Frankly it’s because we are: distracted by other pleasures; by other duties; and by other people. We do this long enough that it becomes a habit. God intervenes in multiple areas of our lives, to get us to pray and draw closer. Then we become upset at Him, that somehow He is ruining everything. When all the time, our distractions have become the objects of our love. We have taken God for granted. At this point… who wants to have a dialogue with someone who is taking away our pleasures and seems to be the source of our pain?

It’s personal. It’s a relationship. You would think The One we are to love the most would get more communication out of us. You would think we would trust The One who has died for us and brought us this far. Yet we don’t. When you’re upset at someone you rarely, if ever, seek a time to dialogue and chit chat for a day. Truthfully they are lucky if they get a cordial greeting in passing. 

I love the text of Luke 13.1-8. Jesus said in verse 1 that the parable coming was to the subject of: “pray and not faint”.The word “always” tells us what our text also says. The phrase “continually coming in and night and day” also tells us the same thing. The word “faint”though, isn’t in our text. Jesus is telling us what can happen if we do not pray without ceasing… we are subject to crashing. In fact He concludes in verse 8 that people’s faith in general will crash. Our faith crashes because we do not keep an open line with God all day—all the time—everyday. 

Jesus made it clear that if we do not pray without intermission, our faith will not only suffer, it will crash!  

How is your faith life? Are there time gaps? It can be directly determined by your prayer life. Start a conversation with God today and don’t let it stop.

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