Two Types of Praying

When we turn to the Scripture for an understanding of prayer, we find ourselves encountering two types of praying that are distinctively different; yet, which also compliment one another.  The first is the kind of praying most of us started out doing in the days of beginning our walk along the road of faith.  Jesus introduced us to this type of praying as He taught His disciples, "When you pray, say..."  (Luke 11:2) and what followed was what we have learned to call The Lord's Prayer.  The Word is full of such prayers, prayers that have filled books of ritual and prayers as well as the hearts of many believers.    

Such prayers teach us that prayer is about doing.  They are about performing the ritual, or adhering to a pattern of devotion.  Praying in such a way became the work of the early church as in the case of the church gathering in a prayer meeting when Peter was delivered from prison. (Acts 12:6-17)  Not only was it done by groups gathered as prayers were offered in intercession, but it was also the means through which the Holy Spirit worked out holy plans among the church as was the case with Peter and Cornelius. (Acts 10)  The doing prayers seem associated with a time and place, or some specific need.  

But, there is also a second kind of praying to which the Word points us.  It is the being prayers.  The Apostle Paul lifts up this type of praying as he wrote to the early church, "pray without ceasing."  (I Thessalonians 5:17)  This kind of praying lacks the planning of ritual shaped prayers.  They are not shaped by time or space, but come spontaneously from the place within us where the Spirit is working.  Praying as Paul writes of praying cannot be done by the will, or by a plan because they are more like prayers that come from within as breath does when it leaves our bodies.  As we learn to be attentive to God in everything around us, we will find that the prayers that do not cease have a beginning.