In Secret

The words of Jesus ...

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."  (Matthew 6:6 KJV)

The premise here is that you pray.  Jesus is showing clearly, expressing emphatically ... "when you pray" ... as if this act of prayer is part of the natural state of the believer.  Whoever you are, Jew or Christian, enter into your closet.  Jesus was speaking to both of you.  Prayer is the conversation between your heart and God's heart.

God already knows what's in your heart ... prayer is how you get to know what's in God's heart.  It's a bonding time.  If parent and child never experienced talking together, or laughing together, spending time together they would never bond as they should.  It's the same with your Heavenly Father.

Every Jewish house had a place for secret devotion.  The roofs of their houses were flat, well adapted for walking around as they lifted their hearts unto God in conversation and meditation unto Him.  It is here, in secrecy and solitude, the believing Jew might offer his prayers, unseen by any but the Searcher of hearts, God Himself.  It is to this type of setting Jesus directed His disciples to enter when they wished to communicate with God.

I found this by Albert Barnes (1798-1870) an American Presbyterian biblical scholar and theologian.  He writes ...

"The meaning of Jesus is, that there should be some place where we may be in secret, where we may be alone with God.  There should be some place to which we may go where no ear will hear us but His ear, and no eye can see us but His eye.  Unless there is such a place, secret prayer seeking His heart will not be very long maintained."

Jesus does not specify the times when we should pray in secret, or how often it should be done.  Why should we pray in secret?  Because He instructed us too.  It also helps to block out all the distractions around us so we can look to the Lord in the stillness and peace of the secret place, where it becomes easier to hear His voice.  Jesus Himself often needed to get alone with His Father in secret prayer.

The Lord had the same time restraints that we have.  As a man, He had all the same problems and difficulties that we might have, but yet He lived out the practice of maintaining secret prayer.  To be alone, He would often rise up early in the morning and go to a solitary place ... a mountain grove of trees or a garden spot He found as He traveled throughout Israel.  Jesus was always on the move, was among strangers most of the time, had no house of His own, but still ... He lived in the habit of secret prayer.
 
What excuse then can we have for not praying, we who have a home, we who spend the morning hours asleep instead of practicing a little self-denial so that we may be alone with God in secret.  I'm speaking of myself here.

In my minds eye, I can picture a young David caring for his sheep, turning the rolling hills into his secret place of meditation and prayer.  Later as the Psalmist, David declares what he learned and practiced as a young shepherd boy when he was out alone with his sheep.

Psalms 5: 1-3 ... "Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.  Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.  My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct (my prayer) unto thee, and will look up."

As a shepherd boy, David didn't need a rooftop to be his secret place of prayer.  But later as King, David used his palace rooftop as his secret place of worship ... until one evening his eyes strayed to a woman next door bathing ... and God was forgotten.

So, as you ... "enter into thy closet ... (the secret place of prayer, wherever it is) ... pray to thy Father which is in secret (unseen by us) and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

God sees what the human eye cannot ... the heart and soul of man.  He sees all that is in the heart.  The desires, the hurts, the disappointments, the failures and the messes that we make in life.  When you are in that secret place, just you and Him, no one else ... ask for His heart to be yours ... and then your joy will be full and you can say just like David, "my cup runneth over." 

Prayer should always be offered, whatever the reason, but I don't believe it's the words of prayer that are the most important.  It's what is in the heart and soul that drives us to seek Him and be with Him ... in secret.



Comments are welcome.