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Unceasing Thinking to Unceasing Praying

Have you ever carried the workplace controversy and dialogue home with you, only to replay it in your mind throughout the night? Have you been subject to depressing news processing through your brain until you are weary and afraid? Has the world's chatter drowned out the quiet voice of your Heavenly Father until hopelessness becomes more dominant than His peace?

Henri J.M. Nouwen wrote in his book Called to Life, Called to Love:

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is "unceasing." Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings and fears.

Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with God, Who is the source of all love.

Converting thinking into praying is our goal. Capturing our thoughts and beaming them up to God can become a wonderful habit!

II Corinthians10:5 (NKJV) recommends, ". . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . ."

For example, if you're at home cooking and your thoughts are replaying scenarios about harm coming to your children, you can stop and begin praying for their safety and well-being. If you are at work and you start thinking about a difficult project coming up, you can turn that thought into a prayer for the Lord's strength for the task. Or if you have a troubling situation playing and replaying in your head, stop and pray God's peace and love on all those involved.

Philippians 4:6 in The Message, really puts it into perspective:
Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Let's turn our unceasing thinking, analyzing, and worrying into unceasing praying! After all, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

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