Lesson Two • The Tone of Prayer
Devotion 3: Power of Secret Prayer
Pastor John Carter
Have you ever been in conversation with someone that seemed distracted? Was their attention on the device that was in front of them? Were they busy playing video games and it seemed like the only way you can get their attention was to stand right in front of the TV? Are you naturally intuitive enough to see their mind is somewhere else and you notice you do not have their full attention? How does that make you feel?
As we walk through the genuine heart of prayer, Jesus does a fantastic job of giving us a comparison. It is a bad example, if you will, versus a good example. Yesterday, we looked at the bad example (the way the hypocrites pray). Today, we are going to walk through the example that Jesus articulates for us to help us focus our conversations directly on God. I do not think God is completely indifferent to how we approach Him. In fact, being that we are made in His image, just as we desire the attention of someone we are engaged in conversation with, I believe God also desires this devoted attention.
Matthew 6:6 says, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”
We should consider prayer as a time of communication with God. Yes, it is with God! He is the One who made and created all things, the One who has the power to speak things into existence. He is the supreme being of all beings ever created! Considering that, it is amazing that God offers us time to come to Him and talk with Him. I think it would be okay to say He might desire focused attention. Jesus gives us this picture of going into a room and praying behind closed doors, the comparison is the contrast of being seen and heard by people versus being seen and heard by the Almighty. God knows all things, but He still desires to have a relationship with us.
I love that Jesus treats prayer as a special time. It is a time that requires you to close the door. Have you ever been praying and as you were talking to God, weird things pop up into your head? Maybe it had to do with things that are going to happen in the day or maybe it was a thought of what you were going to eat. Maybe you have a really bad attention span and you see something on the wall and your mind drifts. In the passage above, Jesus says to shut the door and pray! I see this as Jesus instructing us to close out all the distractions of the world. When we come to the Father, He wants our attention. He wants our focus to be on the petitions we bring to Him. He wants our focus to be on Him.
Have you ever considered your prayer time with God as a date? I know this may seem like a weird analogy, but try and walk through the thought exercise for a minute. I try to take my three daughters on a date once a month. They are so excited to get to spend time with me. It is special for me too. They cherish every moment and all the conversations we have are very focused. As I see their heart and their passions, I get the feeling this is also the desire of our Heavenly Father. He desires to know our hearts and our passions, an intimate moment where we can be in the presence of our Father and He gives us His undivided attention.
He asks us to do this in secret because our Father is in secret. The humility of God is expressed in the very way we pray. God is not bragging to His other kids about how much time He spends with one versus the other. He is saying, “I devote myself to my children and I care for each of them.”
The power of Elisha’s prayer for healing brought back a child to life. In 2 Kings 4:32-33, we read, “When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord.”
Isaiah tells us the power of prayer in repentance protects us from the fury of God.
Isaiah 26:20 says, “Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.”
Taking the time to literally shut the door and go to a place where it is just you and God can produce incredible results in our relationship with God. It allows God to work on things in our hearts that need to be fixed or felt. It allows our prayers to reach the One and Only being that can produce miraculous results in our petitions. Let me encourage you today to try this practice in real life. Find a place where the world can be shut out (do not take your phone there) and just focus on you and God. Let Him speak to you as you pour your heart out to Him.