The other day, I walked into a room looking for my phone… while talking on my phone. I wish that were a rare moment, but it’s not. I’ve poured coffee into a cup that already had coffee in it. I’ve stood in front of the fridge with the door open like it was going to magically reveal something new. I’ve even prayed distracted prayers while thinking about what I was going to eat afterward…OFTEN! If there’s one thing I’m consistent at, it’s being inconsistent. And honestly, that’s the problem when it comes to prayer. Not that we don’t care. Not that we don’t believe. But we forget. We drift. We lose awareness. We live whole chunks of our day like God isn’t there. Yet the apostle Paul says, “pray without ceasing.” That sounds beautiful and impossible until you realize he’s not talking about nonstop talking. He’s talking about a nonstop awareness.
Learning to live before the face of God, what the Reformers called Coram Deo, helps us understand this. It means living in His presence, under His authority, and for His glory. Not just in church and during a quiet time, but everywhere, all the time. This is what “praying without ceasing” looks like. It means your life becomes a kind of ongoing conversation with God. Not forced. Not formal. Just real. You wake up and think, “Lord, I need You today.” You head into work and whisper, “Help me do this well.” You deal with a difficult person and quietly pray, “Give me patience because I don’t have it.” You fail, and instead of hiding, you say, “Father, forgive me.” It’s like a revolving door. You’re constantly turning back toward Him throughout the day.
Practicing the presence of God in real life is not a new idea. Psalm 139 reminds us that there is nowhere we can go where God is not already present. Whether we rise or lie down, whether we’re working or resting, He is there. Brother Lawrence, a simple monk who worked in a kitchen, wrote in his book, Practicing the Presence of God, about being in God’s presence while washing dishes, not while preaching or leading worship, but while scrubbing pots. That’s the point. A Christian working a regular job is not doing something less spiritual than a pastor. If you’re in Christ, your work is done before the face of God. Answering emails can be worship. Changing diapers can be worship. Taking out the trash can be worship. Even your most ordinary moments can become communion with God when you start to remember that He’s there because His Holy Spirit indwells you.
This kind of life begins to grow integrity. Integrity simply means you’re the same person at noon that you are at midnight, the same person in public that you are in private. Why? Because you’re not living for people anymore. You’re living before God. It slowly kills the need for human approval because when you realize God sees everything and loves you anyway, the opinions of others lose their grip.
So, if God is always present and prayer can be this natural, why don’t we live this way? The honest answer is that we don’t trust Him as much as we think we do. That’s where the older brother in Jesus’ story hits closer to home than we’d like. He says to his father, “Look… you never gave me…” We hear that and think, “What a terrible attitude,” but if we’re honest, we do the same thing, just more subtly. We don’t complain about goats or parties, but we complain in our hearts. We look at our lives and think, “Why isn’t this working out?” We assume God must not be paying attention. We start to doubt His goodness when things don’t go the way we expected. And the Father’s response to the older son is the same thing He says to us: “You are always with me. And everything I have is yours.” That is Coram Deo. You are always with Him, and He has always been with you.
At the root of this struggle is ingratitude. Our lack of prayer isn’t just about discipline, it’s about forgetfulness. We overlook what God has already given us. We ignore the fact that He is working in all things for our good. We start measuring His love by outcomes instead of by the cross. And when that happens, we drift out of awareness. We stop turning toward Him. We stop talking to Him, not because He left, but because we did.
So how do we grow a life of constant prayer? Not by trying to force ourselves to pray every second, because that will just make us tired. Instead, we can start small and stay honest. Begin each day acknowledging Him, not with fancy words, but simply saying, “God, I need You today.” (Matt. 5:3) Build the habit of turning your thoughts into prayers. When something stresses you out, talk to Him about it. When something makes you happy, thank Him for it. Let your day be interrupted by short, real prayers. Start connecting your ordinary life to His presence. When you walk into work, remind yourself, “I’m doing this before God.” When you serve someone, think, “This matters to Him.” When you’re alone, remember, “I’m not actually alone.” Over time, your awareness begins to grow, and as it grows, something else happens. You start needing Him more. Jesus said in John 15 that apart from Him, we can do nothing. At first, that sounds extreme, but the more you live before His face, the more you realize it’s just true. You need Him for patience, for wisdom, for joy, even to want Him. And that’s where prayer stops feeling like a task and starts becoming a lifeline.
You are going to forget. You are going to have entire mornings where you don’t think about God at all. You are going to pray distracted prayers and feel like you’re doing it wrong. That’s part of being human. The goal is not perfection; it’s turning back. Every time you remember, you turn back. Every time you drift, you come back. And every time you come back, you’re reminded of the same truth the Father spoke: “You are always with me. And everything I have is yours.” That truth doesn’t just fix your ingratitude; it fuels your prayer life. Because when you really believe that God is with you, that He’s for you, that He’s already given you everything in Christ, you don’t just pray more, you live like He’s there. That’s the power of prayer, ceaseless prayer that is fueled by the Holy Spirit.
P.S. We hope you are finding the 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting to be a helpful resource to fuel the habit of prayer in your life. We also want to encourage you, if you haven’t already, to sign up for an hour in the prayer room that will be open from April 1-3 during Holy Week. You can find a link to sign up here.