Pray without ceasing: what does it mean, and is it even possible? (learning from Pastor Hsi)
“Pray without ceasing.”
So commands the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17.
Perhaps, in response, these two questions naturally rush out:
What does that mean?
Is that even possible?
Learning from Pastor Hsi
I have found many Christian biographies to serve particularly good spiritual food. And I recently completed a second reading of ‘Pastor Hsi’ by Mrs Howard Taylor. The author using her husband’s name should tell you how long ago the first edition appeared – in this case, 1900. And the subject of the book dates as even older: Hsi lived from 1835-1896.
Before trusting in Jesus as Lord, Hsi was a Confucian scholar with a soul hungry for meaning. And after some hardships and poor health he became addicted to opium. The biography chronicles how God rescued this man from both his sin and drugs, and reshaped him as an evangelist, and pastor, and the founder of centers used by God to heal many others dependent on the scourge of opium in China. Hsi’s story is incredibly edifying, and I strongly recommend the biography to you.
And to give you a taster of the riches, let me note an excerpt highlighting very practically what ‘praying without ceasing’ looked like for this Chinese Christian:
“Hsi prayed about everything; seeking the help of God in business matters and family life just as simply and confidently in spiritual things.
He believed, for example, that the Lord understood farming much better than he did, and was truly interested in the care of his land and crops as in the ordering of the spheres.
Just as the greatest ruler on earth, if he was a father, would be sure to care for the needs of his little one no less than for the affairs of state. And our Father is infinite: that is, without any limitations.
So Hsi prayed “without ceasing,” because he prayed about all things, from moment to moment, day by day.”
Pastor Hsi by Mrs Howard Taylor (OMF, 1989), pg. 263
As you might be able to spot, Hsi’s understanding of and relationship with God intertwined as something both massively grand, and intimately sweet. And persistent and permeating prayer, in everything and for everything, constituted the natural overflow. No sacred/secular divide existed for Hsi. Knowing Jesus, he saw nothing as too beneath or beyond his Father! As Taylor continues:
“One outcome of this habitual prayerfulness, was the attitude so natural to him of seeing God’s hand in everything.”
Hsi prayerfully walked with God
The biography radiates evidence of a man who, even with significant failings, walked with God as his God in Jesus Christ and by the Spirit. And surely his faith-driven prayer was used by God as both a feeder to and outcome of his knowledge of God. That is to say, his prayerfulness before God both grew his awareness of God – for isn’t it true that what we pray about, we are often more aware of? But also, an outcome of his awareness of God was habitual prayerfulness – after all, as we grow in knowing God, we surely grow in prayerful dependence on him too.
So, what might it mean to pray without ceasing, and is it possible?
Hsi provides an example in both content and possibility:
“Hsi prayed about everything; seeking the help of God in business matters and family life just as simply and confidently in spiritual things.”
For those of us in Jesus, may our good Father likewise grow us in this, especially as we remember his exhortation:
“Rejoice always, pray constantly (without ceasing), give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
