I have a really hard time in the kitchen, fixing a meal, when I have visitors. It takes twice as long to complete the cooking task. And I don’t think it’s just a matter of needing to speak with my hands - you know the old joke, the best way to shut her up is to hold her hands - I think I could overcome that and still talk. But I cannot continue my cooking task while I’m talking. I have to stop, say what I need to say, and then pick up the cooking task again. When I’m again required to make a response, I have to refocus my attention completely on the conversation. Now, if I’m just listening, I do much better. But putting coherent thoughts together requires my complete attention. I cannot do two things at once.

So I want to think about the scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray continually.” It’s hard to think of praying continually. If I take 1 Thessalonians 5:17 seriously, in a traditional way of thinking of praying and the word continually, then how would I concentrate to pay by bills? - it takes concentration and focus to add numbers correctly. And how could I follow a recipe, concentrating on the ingredients and putting them together properly, if I was having a conversation with God?

I don’t think that’s quite the meaning. I’d like to spend some time exploring just these two words and what an incredible difference a better understanding of them can make in our lives.

What is prayer? 

Some people approach prayer like rubbing a bottle to make the genie appear. It is, to them, the means by which God will grant them whatever they need. A closer reading of the Bible quickly disproves this notion. Paul said, “There was given me a thorn in my flesh . . .Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) God’s answer was no; you don’t always get what you want.

Nevertheless, God does want us to tell Him of our problems. There’s a song entitled “I Must Tell Jesus” on page 636.  The words and music were written by Pastor Elisha Hoffman after he’d visited a woman in his pastorate. “God had permitted,” he wrote, “many visitations of sorrow and affliction” in this woman’s life and she was very discouraged. She asked him, “What shall I do?” He quoted some scriptures to her and then told her, “You cannot do better than to take all of your sorrows to Jesus. You must tell Jesus.” As Pastor Elisha Hoffman walked home, he couldn’t quit thinking about the joy on the woman’s face and his feet tapped the beat to the refrain, “I must tell Jesus.” He quickly wrote the words to this hymn - and then soon added the music.

Must Tell Jesus

I must tell Jesus all of my trials; I cannot bear these burdens alone.
In my distress He kindly will help me; He ever loves and cares for His own.

Refrain: I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! 
I cannot bear my burdens alone;
I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus!
Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.

I must tell Jesus all of my troubles; He is a kind, compassionate Friend.
If I but ask Him, He will deliver, Make of my troubles quickly an end. (refrain)

O how the world to evil allures me! O how my heart is tempted to sin!
I must tell Jesus, and He will help me over the world the vict’ry to win. (refrain)

What scriptures would you have cited to the woman to encourage her to talk to Jesus? Here are a few I thought of:

*Psalm 6:9 says, “The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.”

*Hannah; 1 Samuel 1:16 -17 “Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God is Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

*Sennacherib besieging Jerusalem; 

2 Kings 19:14 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.

2 Chronicles 32:20 “King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this. And the LORD sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king.”

*Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: Matthew 26:38-39 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

God wants us to go to Him in prayer with all of our needs and concerns and desires. But praying continually? You’d get awfully tired to hearing someone’s problems only, always. So what else should be a part of our continual prayer. He also wants our repentance. This next hymn addresses the items for which we need to repent.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem from which was taken the hymn “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.”

John Greenleaf Whittier never intended for his words to become a hymn. Rather, they began as a long poem entitled “The Brewing of Soma.” Soma is an intoxicating drink brewed in a Hindu sect as a part of religious rites. Once imbibed, the drinkers were said to have reached an ecstatic state, dancing and twirling, shouting and chanting in an emotional frenzy. Whittier saw the revivalist meetings near his home in 1872 in the same light as these Hindu rites. They both offended his Quaker temperament. He felt it much more appropriate to seek God through the quiet inward communication of prayer and silent meditation, as practiced by his Quaker congregation.

Because Quaker services do not include music, Whittier did not feel as if he knew enough about music to write a good hymn. In fact, he said, “A good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be devoted, but I do not claim that I have succeeded in composing one.”

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind; In purer lives Thy service find
In deeper rev’rence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard, beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord, let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness till all our strivings cease.
Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe thro’ the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm.
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak thro’ the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm!

You may disagree with the title right off the bat, as my husband did, because God is not the Father of mankind. Jesus told some of the Pharisees, “You belong to your father, the devil . . .” John 8:44  However, there are some powerful ideas and areas where we need forgiveness in Whittier’s poem:

Forgive our foolish ways. We need God’s forgiveness, and we need to ask for it. Even Jesus taught us to ask for forgiveness. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Matthew 6:12
Reclothe us in our rightful mind. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Romans 12:2
In purer lives Thy service find. We need to purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit out of reverence for God. 2 Corinthians 7:1
In deeper rev’rence, praise. Praise of God needs to be the first things off our lips as we reverence God.  Why? Because He is worthy of our praise. 1 Chronicles 16:25, Psalm 48:1
In simple trust, rise up and follow Thee. We need to trust God enough to go where He leads us, willingly and obediently. Matthew 4:21-22
Let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace. The fruit of the Spirit should be evident in our lives, the peace that passes all understanding, as witnesses to God’s presence in our lives. Galatians 5:22, Philippians 4:7, Matthew 5:16
O still small voice of calm! God wasn’t in the earthquake or the fire or the wind when Ezekiel was in the cave (1 Kings 19:11-13). Even Jesus calmed the stormy seas - a storm of seismic proportions. Matthew 8:23-27 He can certainly calm the storms in our lives, if we ask.

But isn’t there a formula for how long you should pray each day? Were you told, at some point, to spend an hour in prayer every day? 

There’s a song you’re all familiar with, Sweet Hour of Prayer. It was written by William Walford. It is thought that Walford was a seventy year old almost blind carver who ran a tiny shop selling small carvings and engravings. He asked his friend, the Rev. Thomas Salmon, to copy down verses  to a prayer-poem he’d been composing in his head. Salmon was so impressed with the words, he made another copy to put with his own papers. Three years later, he was in NYC and sent the poem to the editor of the New York Observer. The editor was impressed and published the poem on Sept. 13, 1845. The  compilers of a Baptist hymnal included it in 1859. In 1861, William Bradbury, noted American composer of gospel music took the poem and reset the words to a the melody that we now sing.

Sweet Hour of Prayer:

Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer,
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known:
In seasons of distress and grief
My soul has often found relief
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer.

Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer,
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless:
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word, and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my every care
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer.

William Walford is right; we do need a special time set apart each day to concentrate and focus on God, praising Him, thanking Him, and presenting our petition with thanksgiving. The hymn reminds us of the blessings of prayer - relief for our troubled lives and the assurance of a God who is concerned about our every need.

But what about when things are not rough? What about when life’s seas are calm? Do we still need to set aside an hour of our precious time to pray to God? And what about praying continually?

I want to tell you the story of Annie Hawks. She wrote, “One day as a young wife and mother of 37 years of age, I was busy with my regular household tasks. Suddenly, I became filled with the sense of nearness to the Master, and I began to wonder how anyone could ever live without Him, either in joy or pain. Then the words were ushered into my mind and these thoughts took full possession of me - I need Thee every hour.”

Need Thee Every Hour 

I need Thee every hour, Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need Thee, O I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee!
O bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their pow’r when Thou art nigh.

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide, or life is vain.

I need Thee every hour, Most Holy One;
O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessed Son!

We need God with us in joy or pain; we need Him every hour. I believe that’s why Paul wrote, “Pray continually.”  So am I advocating praying all the time? Not in the sense that that we normally think of praying. 

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? Sometimes having someone sing a song is all it takes to get it stuck in my head. Sometimes it’s a smell. Sometimes it’s a certain situation. Do you know what I’m talking about? Have you ever had a song stuck in your head - for days? It’s right there at the edge of your consciousness, at times more pronounced, but it’s still there. That’s the kind of prayer I think we should have going continually - like a phone that hasn’t been hung up. You don’t need to say something every moment in the day, but it’s a constant awareness that the conversation is on-going - right at the edge of your consciousness, sometimes more pronounced than other times, but there nevertheless.

How do you get to that place? Maybe you’ve never been the kind of person to have a song stuck in your head. Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about. I believe that music is incredibly powerful.  I’d be willing to bet that most of you could finish these commercial jingles for me:

The best part of waking up . . .

Mmm good. Mmm good. 

When words are tied with music, they tend to stick in memory faster than the words by themselves. So, start singing hymns, psalms and spiritual songs. Walk around the house humming “Onward Christian Soldiers” or “I’m in the Lord’s Army,” or “Come Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing.”

What if you don’t know all the words to a hymn? I would start with picking up a hymnbook at a Christian bookstore, or ordering one from CBD. Then every evening before you go to bed, read and/or sing one hymn. Just one. Think a little about the words. Maybe look up some of the scriptures that it brings to mind. Then read and sing the same hymn the next morning. You may like that one so well and want to commit the words to memory. So you read it again that night and the next morning. Or you may want to move on to another hymn. Whatever you decide, you are reading the same hymn at night before you go to bed and reinforcing that same hymn the next morning.

I’d be willing to bet it won’t take long for the singing songs of praise or thanksgiving or petition to God to bring more frequent thoughts of God to mind. It’s an easy step from there to a continual conversation.

Annie Hawks didn’t originally intend for her prayer-poem to become a hymn. But she showed it to her pastor, Robert Lowry, who also just happened to be an accomplished gospel hymn writer. He set her words to music and it was included in a pamphlet of hymns for the Baptist Sunday school convention that year. From there, it was published in a hymnbook  by Robert Lowry and William Doane. Later as Ira Sankey and Dwight Moody held their evangelistic conventions across the U.S. and Great Britain, it became a favorite hymn. Annie Hawks didn’t know why her hymn resonated with people. But sixteen years after Annie Hawks wrote “I Need Thee Every Hour,” her husband died. Years later she wrote, “I did not understand at first why this hymn had touched the great throbbing heart of humanity. It was not until long after, when the shadow fell over my way, the shadow of a great loss, that I understood something of the comforting power in the words which I had been permitted to give out to others in my hour of sweet serenity and peace.”

We do need Him every hour! We need to get to that goal of praying continually, when times are good so that we’re already in that sustaining relationship for when times are not so good. There is great comfort in a good relationship with God, one that is deep and abiding.

Henry Lyte wrote “Abide With Me.”  From the time he was a small child, he suffered with asthma. But he persevered, earning a doctorate in theology from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. He pastored in several small parishes, finally settling in the fishing village of Lower Brixham, Devonshire, England in 1824. He ignored his own ailments, coining the phrase, “It’s better to wear out than to rust out.” In the 1840s, his doctors told him he’d contracted tuberculosis and didn’t have long to live. They recommended he move to Italy. Reluctantly, he agreed.

On his last Sunday with his parishioners he spoke passionately about their need to prepare for the time when they would have to face their Maker. Later that day, in his study, he penned the words to “Abide With Me.” He handed it to a relative and got ready to go to Italy. He made it across the English Channel and to Nice, France. He was so weak at that point that he could not continue. He died and was buried in the English cemetery in Nice. 

Abide With Me

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts fless,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day.
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
Who, like Thyself, my Guide and Stay can be?
Thro’ cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; 
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine thro’ the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee.
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

This hymn was translated into dozens of languages and seemed to take on a life of its own after Henry Lyte’s died. When the centenary of Lyte’s death was remembered in 1947, letters poured in talking about the hymns impact on people’s lives.

A group of ex-prisoners of war from England recalled how they sang the hymn each Sunday evening while imprisoned.

Survivors of the Titanic catastrophe told of hearing the strains of “Abide With Me” sung by the doomed passengers standing on the sinking ship as it slipped beneath the sea.

Belgian survivors of World War I reported that the words of “Abide With Me” were on the lips of British nurse Edith Cavel as she faced a German firing squad in 1915, condemned for her part in sheltering British, French, and Belgian soldiers.

What we can do with music when it’s focused on Jesus our Messiah! Do you see how music can be a useful tool for improving your prayer life?

There’s a story which turningpoint.org sent out in August 2008. Years ago a pastor stayed the night in a young couple's home. When he awoke the next morning, he heard a beautiful voice singing, "Nearer, My God to Thee," and inquired about it at breakfast. He said he was pleased to hear the old hymn but remembered it being slower than how he had heard it that morning. "Oh," replied the hostess, "that's because I wasn't paying too much attention to the words. It's a song my mom used to sing, and I've found it's a good one to boil eggs by; repeat the song five times rapidly for soft-boiled eggs and eight times for hard-boiled."

Music doesn’t have to be a throw away event you do occasionally because it’s part of your worship ritual. Don’t let yourself go through the motions of singing without listening to what you’re saying. Lamar Boschman said, “When I worship, I would rather my heart be without words than my words be without heart.”  Transfer that thought to the hymns you sing: If you begin to mean the words you are singing, they can become a very useful tool.

As you pay more attention to the words and sing more words like “Nearer, My God to Thee” you may be surprised to find yourself nearer to God. Remember how we talked about getting songs stuck in your head. It’s a very small step from humming those melodies which praise God, ask for His intervention, affirm His greatness and involvement in your life - to actively talking in a mixture of your own words and words from those hymns to God. And, as you sing songs and spend more time in prayer, you’ll find your relationship with God improving. Eventually, that relationship will be so close that you’re never done talking with your best Friend. He’s always in your thoughts. You’re always communicating, always seeking His will. You’ll have reached that goal of praying continually.

And what happens when we pray continually?

I love this verse from Deuteronomy 4:7: What other nations is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 

So pray. Sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Col 3:16) Make it your goal to have thoughts of God always at the edge of your consciousness, always there, always abiding - or if you will, tabernacling with you. Use music to help you get to the point of praying continually.

Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands...Come before His presence with singing.

Psalm 100:1-2