A Thought Life Turned Into Conversation
"Pray without ceasing." — 1 Thessalonians 5:17
The Request That Startled Her
A believer once asked God a question: "Father, You have such terrible burdens. You have the whole world and all its troubles to look after. Is it possible for me to do anything to give You pleasure, or to minister to Your heart?"
The answer:
"Yes. Talk to Me, child. Talk to Me. Most people only ask Me for things. They aren't willing to talk to Me and make Me a part of their everyday life."
That is what He wants. God desires our fellowship.
The Simplest Change You Will Ever Make
Everybody has a thought life. You are thinking continuously during every waking moment — a running interior monologue that never stops.
Instead of thinking to yourself, start thinking to the Lord.
That is the whole method. Turn your existing internal narration into a conversation. Form the habit of talking to Him about everything.
"Pray without ceasing." (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." (Ephesians 6:18)
This kind of conversational thinking through the day is one of the ways those commands are actually fulfilled. Nobody kneels for sixteen hours. Everybody thinks for sixteen hours.
He Is Interested in the Details
This is the part most believers find hardest to believe.
The Lord is interested in the smallest details of your life and everything you do. He never gets bored with what you are doing. He never thinks what you are doing is too insignificant for His attention.
He is interested in the seam a person is sewing — whether it is straight, and in helping them make it straight if they are struggling.
Asked once whether He had been bored working in a carpenter's shop when He could have spoken things into existence, His answer was: "Why should I be bored? I have never been bored while I was creating anything. In fact, I have never been bored."
All of creation testifies to this. Look at the detail in a single blade of grass. Details do not weary God the way they weary us.
And there is no other being in the universe who is so completely interested in every part of your life. Other people are chiefly interested in their own. Your enemy is interested only in destroying you. God is interested in you.
A Practical Use for This
One believer, after an illness that affected her memory, learned to lean on this constantly. Throughout the day, whenever she saw something she needed to remember later, she simply asked the Holy Spirit to bring it back to her memory.
He did so graciously, every time. So much so that she concluded: when she forgot something now, it was her own fault for not asking.
Point to Ponder
"Most people only ask Me for things. They aren't willing to talk to Me and make Me part of their everyday life."
Verse to Remember
"Pray without ceasing." — 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Question to Consider
When did I last talk to God about something that was not a request?
Today's Practice
Convert your thought life for one day. Just one, as an experiment.
When you catch yourself thinking, redirect it to Him. Not a formal prayer — the same thought, addressed to Him instead of to yourself. Look at that. This is hard. I don't know what to do here. That was kind of them. Why did I say that?
Tell Him about ordinary things. The task in front of you. The traffic. The meal. The conversation you just had. He is not bored.
Ask Him for practical help with small things. Remind me of this later. Help me get this right. Show me what I am missing.
And thank Him through the day, out loud where you can.
At the end of the day, note what you observed. Most people find two things: that the day felt different, and that thoughts came back to them that they had not generated.
Then decide whether to keep it. It is the single highest-return habit in the Christian life for the least cost.
Prayer
Father, I have only ever come to You with requests. I have treated You as an office to petition rather than a Person to know.
And You told me what would minister to Your heart, and it was the simplest thing imaginable: talk to Me.
So I will. Not only in the morning and not only when something is wrong. Through the day, about everything, in the middle of ordinary work that I assumed was beneath Your attention.
Thank You that You are never bored. That the detail of my life does not weary You the way detail wearies me. That there is no other being anywhere who is genuinely interested in the whole of my life — and that You are.
Turn my thinking into conversation. Let me make You part of every ordinary hour.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Nobody kneels for sixteen hours. Everybody thinks for sixteen hours. Redirect the thinking.