Guard against shrinkage - Pray without ceasing!

I was encouraging my four year old son Tariq never to  stop praying, and that he should keep talking to God even until he was an old man.
He looked at me with a slight look of bewilderment and then asked me quite calmly, "why?"
"Because whenever you pray God answers," I replied.
"No. it is not that," Tariq replied, "if you don't pray you will shrink!"
I wanted to laugh but instead found myself pondering this wise saying.
Recently I was praying and fasting about a matter and got weary and stopped praying when I felt that my prayers were not being heard. During the time that I stopped praying it was one of my most difficult times as I was bordering on depression. Afterwards I vowed that I would never stop communing with God, even if my situation was stubborn.
What this little child told me only now confirmed that prayer is not only a means of getting answers from God. It is also a means to keep us in perfect peace, to strengthen our faith and prevent us from shrinking spiritually.
 I will never be  tempted again to give up and stop praying whenever I feel that my prayers are not being heard. I look back now and realise that some of the things I have gone through, if it was not for prayer I would have been a nut case. I now make a promise to keep praising God through prayer because it is a gift that He has given me to stay spiritually lean.
 1 Thess. 5: 16 - 18 tells me :Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Thank you Lord!