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Pray Without Ceasing, Week 1, Day 1

by David Joynt on June 02, 2019


1 THESSALONIANS 5:17 | Pray without ceasing. PSALM 3:1 | O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me;

We must not hear this command as a practical impossibility or a call to monk like asceticism. Instead it is a practical necessity! Isaac Bashevis Singer says, “I only pray when I am in trouble, but I am always in trouble, so I pray all the time!”
The Psalms give voice to our prayers. They are tools for intimacy with God. Psalms 1 and 2 describe the reasons and rationale for prayer and Psalm 3 is the first real prayer, addressed to God out of need and necessity.
We are always in trouble! Restless with who we are and where we are, dealing with pain, guilt, doubt and confusion, we need a language that is personal, direct and primal. We find it in the Psalms.

How do you address God?
What do you think of Singer’s remark?

Tags: pray

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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