Shut Your Door # 1

Shut Your Door # 1

"But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:6).

Jesus gave very definite instructions concerning prayer. We are to enter into our private room and shut the door. This does not necessarily mean that we must actually be in an private room in a house. We may be out in the field, in the heart of the forest, or on a quiet hillside. When Jesus Himself prayed, it was often in a garden or on a mountain - somewhere apart from the multitude. He teaches us to do the same. We need to be alone. The presence of others disturbs our thoughts. We cannot become wholly absorbed in the purpose of our errand to God - if there are others about us. The chatter of voices interrupts us.

Prayer is a great deal more than we sometimes supposed it to be. We may have thought of it as little more than a daily routine of devotion. We rise in the morning and through force of habit kneel down for a minute or two of what we call praying. We run hurriedly through a form of words, without giving serious thought to what we are saying. We scarcely know when we are through - what we have asked God for! Indeed our petitions were mere rote work - there were no strong desires in our hearts, corresponding to the words we used. We say we have been praying. But have we? That is not what Jesus meant when He said, "Go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret." We may have been in the private chamber in a literal sense, and the door may have been shut - but we have not been with our Father!

Christ means that when you enter the private room - you and God are alone together. The world is far away. Its noises break not in upon your ear. You have put your business, your ambitions, your pleasures, far from you. No eye sees you. No ear hears what you say. Then God is near - and you are alone with Him.

We must have the shut door - for all the most sacred experiences of life. Love will not reveal its holiest thoughts in public. Sorrow wants to be alone in its deepest moods. We wear masks before the world; only when the door is shut - do we reveal our truest selves.

There are moments and experiences in real true human friendships, when two souls are alone and come very close together. The door is shut upon the outside world. No stranger intermeddles. No eye looks in upon the sweet communion. No ear hears what the two say one to the other. No tongue breaks in with any word upon the talk they are having together. Their communion seems really full and close.

Yet not even with the most faithful human friends, is the intimacy ideally perfect. Not even our tenderest friends and those closest to us, know half the reasons why we smile or sigh. Every human heart is a world by itself. We really understand very little of what goes on in the brain and heart of the friend we most intimately know. You say you are perfectly acquainted with your friend. But you are not. You read his smiles and you say, "My friend is very happy today." But in his heart are cares and griefs of which you do not suspect.

The marriage relation, when it is what it should be, represents the most complete blending of lives, and the most intimate mutual knowledge, the one of the other. "We tell each other everything," says a happy husband or wife. "We have no secrets from one another. We know all that goes on in each other's mind and heart." But they really do not, they cannot. There may not be any desire or intention to hide anything from the other. Yet a life is so large - that no one can possibly understand it perfectly. We cannot know either all the good or all the evil in others. We cannot comprehend all the mystery there is in any friend's life. We cannot fathom the sorrow of our friend when the tears stream down his cheeks; or his joy when his heart is overflowing with gladness.

There are suggestions of the incompleteness of human communion and fellowship. You and your friend come together in the most sacred intimacy possible - and yet he knows only a little of you. Your life and his - touch at only a few points.

But when you enter into your private chamber and shut the door upon you and God - you are in the presence of One who knows you perfectly! It was said of Jesus, "He knew what was in men." That is, He looked into the life of everyone who came into His presence, and saw everything that was in it. He read the thoughts and feelings, He saw the insincerities, the hypocrisy, the intrigue, the enmity of those who were plotting against Him. He saw the heart hungers, the cravings, the shy love of those who wished for His friendship. He knew what was in every man and woman. When Jesus asked Peter, "Simon, do you love me?" The answer was, "Yes, Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." He knew all.

This brings us to the very heart of the meaning of prayer. You may not find great comfort in communion with even your best human friend, for he does not fully understand you. He sees too little of your heart and life. But it is your Father who is in the private chamber with you, and knows all, understands all - and He loves you with a love that is infinite in its compassion and its grace!

~J. R. Miller~

(continued with # 2)