Pray Without Ceasing

The Puritan Movement took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Valley of Vision is a collection of prayers by devoted men of God known as the Puritans, such as Richard Baxter, David Brainerd, John Bunyan, Thomas Watson and Isaac Watts. The writer of the preface to the book states that ‘the strength of Puritan character and life lay in the practice of prayer and meditation’.

To our own peril, in our slothfulness we have largely neglected the disciplines of prayer and meditation. We tend to let our pastors, friends and ‘prayer warriors’ do most of our praying.
The depth and intensity of our secret, private prayer life is often revealed in our corporate times of prayer. Our corporate prayers never develop beyond the weak and impotent because we never actively cultivate private prayer and communion with God. One of the disciples begged for Jesus to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1), and so too should we beg in like manner for the Lord to teach us.

We can learn to pray by:
1). Reading and studying the great prayers of scripture.
2). Reading/hearing prayers of committed men of God (such as the Puritans).
3). Praying. We learn by doing. If we don’t pray, we’ll never learn how to pray with effectiveness.

Meditate on this prayer from The Valley of Vision:

May I never think I prosper unless my soul prospers,
Or that I am rich unless rich toward thee,
Or that I am wise unless wise unto salvation.
May I seek first thy kingdom and its righteousness.
May I value things in relation to eternity.
May my spiritual welfare be my chief solicitude.
May I be poor, afflicted, despised and have thy blessing,
Rather than be successful in enterprise,
Or have more than my heart can wish,
Or be admired by my fellow-men,
If thereby these things make me forget thee.