CHOICES AND CONFLICT IN PRAYER

"But you, when you pray, go into your room, and ... pray to your Father who is in secret" - Matthew 6: 6

Jesus does not say: "Do you dream of your Father in secret", but rather "Now to your Father in secret." Prayer is an effort of will. After we meet in our secret place and close the door, the hardest thing to do is to pray; we can not put order in our mind, and our first conflict is thoughts wander. Our great struggle in prayer, is to win the reveries of the mind. We have to discipline the mind, and deliberately focus on prayer. 

We must have a proper place to pray; but once you enter it, you begin to plague the thoughts: "I have to do this and that"; "Close thy door!" A secret silence means to shut the door deliberately to emotions and think only of God. God is in secret, and He sees in His secret place; He does not see us as people see us, or how we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place, it is impossible to doubt God; We have more sure of it than anything else. Your Father, Jesus says, is in the secret place and nowhere else. Enter the secret place, and well the middle of the daily routine you will find God, all the time. Get into the habit to talk to God about everything. If the first time you awaken not throw open the door and let God in, you spend all day at a level well below the ideal; But escancare the door and pray to His Father in secret, and all his activities were marked by the presence of God.

“And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; be done Thy will be done on earth as in heaven”. Luke 11: 2

Oswald Chambers