Just as there are lots of different ways of praying and moods of prayer, there are many different times and seasons of prayer. Many people have made a good habit of praying at certain times of the day or night. In the monastic tradition, monks gather for prayer (the "daily offices") seven times a day (mostly praying the Psalms). Though we often don't recognize it, gathering for worship on Sunday is an act of prayer. From beginning to end, the worship service is directed as a prayer to God in which together we offer up our praise, confession, and petitions while we listen to God's word and receive God's blessing on our lives.

There is another kind of prayer that can and does occur anytime and anywhere, and we can especially see it in the epistles of Paul. On a number of occasions Paul says things like, "since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you," (Col. 1:9) or "I thank my God every time I remember you" (Phil. 1:3). Elsewhere he urges us also to "pray continually" (1 Thess. 5:17).

This does not mean, of course, that Paul is consciously praying every waking moment of the day. For Paul, it means something like life is an ongoing conversation with God. So, when, for example, he finds himself thinking about the Philippians, he utters a word of thanks to God. Or, when problems present themselves, he turns them right over the Lord.

The Bible teaches that there can and should be fixed times of prayer. The advantage of this is that we have set aside time to specifically and mindfully offer prayers to God. But there should also be the other kind of prayer too, the ongoing conversation in which we constantly acknowledge God's presence and our need.

This kind of prayer needs no special words to memorize or liturgy to follow. If God is always with us, all it takes is for us to think of God. We can go to God with any matter at all. When temptation strikes, when disappointment saddens, when we are filled with joy on a lovely day, or when we see someone in need, we know that we can always offer a prayer. What a wonder that we can have this ongoing conversation with the God of the universe.

Many writers have explored what this means over the years. One of the most famous, The Way of the Pilgrim, comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. In it a man seeks the wisdom of spiritual counselors on what it means to pray constantly. He finally discovers the "secret," which is to begin offering what is sometimes called a "breath prayer" all the time, both consciously and unconsciously. His prayer was, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." (You may recognize this from the story of blind Bartimaeus.) After praying that prayer constantly for weeks, months, and years, it became so much a part of him that it just went on, and his life was lived more and more in God's presence. (Another venerable book with a different slant on the subject is Rosalind Rinker's Conversational Prayer.)

This advice may be an extreme, and uttering a breath prayer is not necessary, but the fact that thousands have followed it illustrates that people seriously seek this kind of constant awareness of God's presence.

The main thing is to remember, as Paul shows us, is that prayer isn't just for certain times and places, but for all times and places. It's a way of remaining in constant communion with the Father, and it has the capacity to transform our lives.