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“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I had a basketball coach named Darrell Walker when I was trying out for Everett Community College that was always talking. Whether he was playing, or when he was coaching, he was always talking.

During open gyms you always wanted him on you team. He wasn’t the best athlete in a gym that was filled with college basketball players, but he always ended up on the winning team. Very rarely did other teams beat him because he made all of the people on his team better with his communication. Telling people where to play, yelling where the ball is at, keeping people on their feet, he was always talking.

Communication is very important in basketball. It keeps people constantly thinking, keeps people on the same page and keeps people from making sloppy mistakes. Coach Walker always stressed the importance of communication. If we weren’t talking, we had to run sprints.

I remember when coach was telling us how he thought it was interesting how we can get in trouble during classes for talking to our classmates or how people can talk nonstop on cell phones, but once we step on the basketball court nobody says a word.

Communication with Christ is just as important. Just like communication in basketball helps you to constantly think, stay on the same page and keeps us from making sloppy mistakes, communicating with Christ keeps us thinking about Him and who He is and keeps us from some of life’s sloppy mistakes. Just like in my basketball practices, sometimes we only communicate when we have done something wrong. Once we had to do sprints, we made sure we were communicating with each other.

Many times we only communicate with God when we know we are in sin and are in need of his forgiveness or if a circumstance arises that we know we need Christ for.

In the verse above it talks about praying without ceasing. It doesn’t say to pray only when we have done wrong, but without ceasing. To me, that means that we need to be thinking about God and giving the glory and thanks to Him in everything that we do.

While communicating with Christ is one thing, He also calls us to be communicating amongst others and showing them the life and confidence that comes with being a Christ follower. How are people going to be saved from a life in hell if we aren’t communicating a life of forgiveness and an everlasting life in paradise to them?

Think about how much gossip we speak and others speak everyday. Think about how much time we spend on Facebook, or our cell phones. What if we spoke with Christ as much as we spoke on the telephone? What if we spent more time telling people that Jesus died on the cross so that we could be forgiven and less time telling people about the latest gossip?

I know for myself that I need to do a better job of praying, being thankful and speaking to others. Though I guess It’s a good thing God doesn’t make us run sprints when we mess up.