“There is never a time when prayerful attentiveness is inappropriate or out of place.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – October 23, 2025
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:18, NIV
It is so easy to live a compartmentalized life. We have different “modes” of being: If we’re at work, we’re in work mode, at a baseball game, sports mode, and if we’re at our Sunday service, church mode kicks in. Without realizing it, we bring to each of these modes different assumptions about what we will encounter, and at the same time, how we should or shouldn’t act in response. For example, the side of our lives that wants to lounge around in pajamas and watch TV shouldn’t present itself at a quarterly finance meeting. Similarly, the unbridled enthusiasm and excitement of a sporting event would, in most cases, be inappropriate to display in, say, a parent/teacher meeting or couples counseling.
However, there is never a time when prayerful attentiveness is inappropriate or out of place.
Notice St. Paul’s closing words to the Ephesians. “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests (emphasis added).” This is the alertness that each of us must have and intentionally cultivate, learning to see every moment of life as an opportunity for prayer, an invitation for the Spirit of God to break into our commutes and conversations, our workplace stresses and mundane chores. In fact, rather than seeing these as an exception to the norm, let us instead seek to see this as normal Christianity. As Acts 17:28 reminds us, it is “In him we live and move and have our being.” We do not simply live and move and have our being for two hours on a Sunday morning. No, it is in him that every moment of every day is sustained and preserved. Or, as St. John puts it in the opening of his gospel, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”
This is true of every single person on this earth, whether they realize it or not. Jesus Christ sustains and upholds each of us, yet we are given the gift of responding to his life with an overflow of love and gratitude. And so today, choose to offer all kinds of prayers and requests on all occasions, no matter where you find yourself, remember, the Spirit of God is with you in that place!
Prayer
Father, remind us that it is “normal” to encounter your life and love in every part of our lives. Help us to stay attentive to your presence so that we may know the joy of life with you through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Application
Consider the area of life where you are most tempted to miss the reality of God’s presence. How can you cultivate a deeper awareness of the Lord’s work in your life in that specific space?
Related Reading
Romans 12:1; Colossians 3:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18
Worship Resource
Bryan & Katie Torwalt: Holy Spirit
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