Praying Without Words

Across industries, roles, and seasons of life, we all share a familiar tension: our days are crowded with meetings, to-do lists, and digital noise. As Christians, we long to remain connected to God throughout our workdays, yet the hectic pace of life often distracts us from His presence. When the apostle Paul urged the early church to “pray without ceasing,” he was not talking about an endless list of spoken requests, nor was he asking them to neglect the work before them.

Dan Marotta, a pastor, author, and previous Lunch + Learn speaker, defined prayer as this: “Prayer is a relationship with God. It’s not merely saying words to God; rather listening and within the heart, communing with Him. Prayer is the heart of the creature in relationship to the heart of the Creator.” It is an intentional turning of our attention toward God in the midst of our daily tasks. When we reframe our labor as prayer, our work itself can become an ongoing offering and a form of “praying without ceasing”.

At our recent Lunch + Learn, we had the pleasure of hearing from Lakweshia Ewing, Founder of Unlearn Everything and Live, Nick Pacurari, VP of Student Life at Bryan College, and Tim Hewitt, a defense attorney at Logan-Thompson. They each shared about their relationship with prayer in diverse careers and life experiences, and how consistent surrender to the Lord has shaped the way they approach their work. From their discussion, we learned four ways to practice offering our everyday work as prayer:

Surrendering Before Strategizing

It’s easy to let the calendar become a master to be served rather than a gift to steward. Approaching the workday through the lens of prayer begins by surrendering our plans before diving into our tasks. Instead of strategically trying to fit God into an already busy agenda, open each morning with an intentional posture of yielding control. Lakweshia shares her daily practice: “Prayer is an act of surrender, and not strategy. So I start my day with a surrender. I wake up and I say, ‘Okay, God, what are we going to do today?'”

Before checking emails or tackling a new project, bring each scheduled interaction before God:

• Who am I called to be for You at this table today?
• Whose life am I invited to impact through this conversation today?

When we surrender our plans, every meeting, client check-in, and project milestone ceases to be merely a routine task and becomes an opportunity to worship God in our work.

Working With Excellence

We often compartmentalize our spiritual devotion to Sunday mornings or morning quiet times, treating work hours as separate from our spiritual lives. Yet Scripture reminds us to do everything as “unto the Lord” rather than human masters. Performing our work every day with diligence and excellence is worship to God, and He delights in work done well. Lakweshia notes this: “Our excellence to God is an offering, which becomes my heart posture, which becomes my praying without ceasing. That means everything I do is done in a way that is offering it back to God in service.”

This heart posture shifts how we handle everyday workplace friction. In moments of tension—when a colleague miscommunicates or a client sends a frustrating message—taking a breath before hitting “send” is an act of prayer. Pausing to ask the Spirit for wisdom, choosing to ask questions rather than assuming the worst, and having an honest conversation instead of holding a grudge is worship lived out in real time. In this way, working with excellence extends beyond just the tasks you complete but also in how you treat your co-workers, clients, and all the people around you at work every day. Tim shares about this in his experience as a defense attorney: “For me, it’s sitting with clients in very hard moments and listening… Treating people in those darkest moments of their life with dignity and grace, I think, is a way to pray without words.” Mel adds to this by saying, “Discerning, surrendering, seeing the dignity in others, and being willing to name that dignity, even in a non-Christian setting, not telling someone, “I see God in you,” but naming their dignity–that’s a beautiful way of praying.”

Practicing Dependence

When leadership demands, client crises, or organizational stakes stretch us beyond our personal capacity, anxiety is typically the default response. However, true communion with God is forged in helpless dependence. Rather than relying on past expertise, canned solutions, or polished strategies, prayerful work invites us to seek God in the difficult moments. Nick comments that, “Instead of being people that improvise, we need to be people that are dependent, experiencing and having fresh encounters with God so that we can live faithfully, and lead faithfully in the work that God’s called us to.”

In the heat of crisis management, praying without words can mean sitting across from someone, asking God for “ears to hear what’s unsaid, and eyes to see what’s unseen,” in order to serve that person well. Even when words fail us, we can still turn to the Lord in prayer. Nick bears witness to this: “I just knew I couldn’t do it on my own, and I had to depend upon the Lord. I had to go to Him with eloquent prayers; I had to go to Him with broken prayers, with things I could not articulate; and breath prayers, because I didn’t know what to pray.” Acknowledging our human limitations allows us to depend on Christ: extending compassion, upholding human dignity, and remembering that while we are responsible to be faithful, God holds the final outcome.

Cultivating Rest

In a culture that equates productivity with worth, our worth is easily hijacked by the simple question, “What do you do?” But identity does not stem from what we do. In fact, part of the Lord’s calling for us is to do nothing at times. Rest is a vital part of prayerful work. As Nick reminds us, “There’s a difference between being busy and being hurried. And when you have a full schedule, you have to carve in moments of rest… not letting your schedule manage you but managing your schedule.”

Rest is not merely a pause when exhaustion takes over; it is an active movement toward trusting that God sustains the world without our work. Nick adds, “When Scripture tells us to ‘be still and know’… it’s an action of go. Go into this posture of doing nothing… knowing that God is moving nonetheless because He wants us to be willing vessels.” Practicing this can look like taking a five-minute pause between back-to-back calls or declining to fill every empty block on your calendar, allowing your soul to be present with God between tasks. When you rest, you declare that Jesus is the true advocate, freeing you from the impossible burden of trying to fix everything yourself. Tim reflects on this in his role: “1 John says that Jesus is our perfect advocate and He is the propitiation for our sins, and I have to rest in that. I am not Jesus, I am not the perfect advocate for my clients and I can’t save them.”

Ultimately, your daily work is not an interruption to your spiritual walk; it is holy ground where God desires to commune with you, shape your heart, and bring flourishing to those around you. As Tim reminds us, “Romans 8 says that the Spirit is groaning on our behalf deeper than words, and He is already in intercession for us. I think that’s really important to recognize, that this prayer without words is already ongoing on our behalf, and we just have to enter into that conversation with the Spirit that’s already going on.” As you open your laptop or step into your workplace tomorrow, take heart: the Spirit is already interceding for you. Enter that conversation by surrendering your schedule, completing your work with excellence, recognizing your dependence, and resting in the One who has been there all along.

Join Us for Our Next Lunch + Learn!

We’d love to see you next time! Join Faith Co-Op for our next Lunch + Learn gathering on October 20th as we explore the theme: “We would love to have you join us at our next gathering as we explore “Practicing Friendship at Work” on December 3rd. Together, we will unpack how meaningful relationships and authentic community in the workplace can reshape our vocations and help us see Jesus more clearly in the city of Chattanooga.

• Date and time: December 3, 2026, 11:30AM – 1:00PM
• Topic: Practicing Friendship at Work
• Speakers: Jessica Whatley, Rachel Gammon, William Bryan, & Travis Lytle
• Location: Austin Hatcher Foundation, 1705 S Holtzclaw Ave

Grab your ticket today; register here!

Softening the Soil: A Liturgy of Rest

A creative liturgy to help us release weariness and receive the rest God delights to give.
Adapted by Faith Co-Op, written by Kaysie Strickland

O God who is our Deep Well of Mercy,
we will never reach the bottom of You.
You who hold all things together,
gather us and all our weary parts
into the soft nest of Your presence.

(Silence is held)

Relaxed and Gracious One, we confess
that we have believed the lie
that everything depends on us.
We confess the ways we hide from You
by clinging to activity to prove
we are worthy of Your love.

We name the fear beneath our striving—
the fear of not being remembered,
the fear that things will fall apart
if we do not hold it all,
the fear that You are not actually for us.

Lord, have mercy.
Teach us to release our grip
and open our hands
to receive good gifts.

Hear the good news:
God delights to give rest to His beloved.

The One who fed the people with daily manna,
the One who makes seeds grow unseen,
the One who sustains our heartbeat even now—
this God prepares the table, and welcomes us to rest.

May the peace of Christ
settle into the ground of your being
like heavy rain softens the soil.

For all who are weary—
for those who labor without relief in cruel systems,
for those whose minds do not quiet but suffer in silence,
for those carrying burdens that others refuse to see—
Gentle God, grant them rest.

Lord, give rest to Your beloved.

For caregivers, parents, teachers, pastors, and overseers,
and those whose love is its own hard labor—
strengthen them, surround them, nourish them,
give them moments of shalom in their depths.

Lord, give rest to Your beloved.

For the anxious and over-responsible,
for those afraid to stop,
for those who do not believe
they deserve rest—
wrap them in Your tenderness
and give them eyes to see You.

Lord, give rest to Your beloved.

For creation itself—
the exhausted soil,
the overworked land,
the waters that choke with our diseases,
restore and renew.

Lord, give rest to Your beloved.

Beloved of God,
may you go with the rooted trust
of a seed resting in the earth.

May the One who neither slumbers nor sleeps
keep watch over your days and your nights,
your working and your resting.
May Christ, the Lowly and Gentle One,
tend to your fear and fatigue.
And may the Spirit whisper a song of peace
into the surrender of your every exhale.

Go now in the unhurried love of God.
Amen.

Other resources

Praying with Paul by D. A. Carson

Work as Prayer, a conversation with Dan Marotta

Working in the Presence of God by Denise Daniels and Shannon Vandewarker