Spiritual Antennae

Every time a group hunkers down to a really good discussion on prayer, it seems to inevitably be about petitions, whether your own or interceding for others. I wish people would remember, or realize, that listening is a very large part of prayer. I know we know that prayer is so much more than asking for things, but whenever it's discussed, those other things seem to disappear.

But when Paul says to "pray without ceasing", does he mean that we should walk around continually muttering about things? Does he mean that we keep up a constant stream of "do this, do that, bless hims" every minute we're awake? "With all sorts of prayers and requests"...

Or does he mean something else entirely? A while ago I came to think of it as always referring everything to God, eventually a sort of "always on" mode. Filtering it through Him, what He thinks about it. Kind of like having spiritual antennae, always testing, testing, to see what the Lord says about this or that. Constantly listening, constantly sensitive to when we do something wrong or when someone speaks error.

Again, though, that's probably only part of it, even though it's a constant.