XIX
CONCENTRATION IN PRAYER
"Lord, teach us to pray."--Luke xi. 1.
"When thou hast shut thy door."--Matt. vi. 6.
We shut our door when we wish to be alone. We
shut our door when we have some special work to
do that must to-day be done, some piece of work
that has been far too long put off and postponed.
"I have some time to myself to-day," we
say to our household. "Tell those who ask for me
to-day that I am so occupied that my time is not
my own. Tell them to leave their message, or to
write to me. Tell them that I hope to be free, and
at their service, any time to-morrow." We are
deep in our accounts; or our every thought is
drunk up in some business so serious that we cannot
think of anything else. We have put off and put
off that imperative duty,--that so distressing
entanglement,--till we can put it off not one hour
longer. And then it is that we shut our door, and
turn the key, and lock ourselves in and all other
men and all other matters out, till this pressing
matter, this importunate business, is finished and
off our hands.
And then, as soon as it is finished and off our
hands, we rise up and open our door. Our hands
are free now. Our heart is lightened, and we are
the best of company for the rest of the day.
Nothing could be plainer, and more impressive,
than our Lord's words to us in the text. Just as
you do every day,--He says to us,--in your household
and business life, so do, exactly, in your
religious life. Fix on times; set apart times. He
does not say how often, or how long. He leaves
all that to each man to find out for himself; only
He says, When you have, and as often as you have,
real business on hand with heaven; when the
concerns of another life and another world are
pressing you hard; when neglect and postponement
will do no longer; then, set about the things
of God in a serious, resolved, instant, business-like
way. "Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret."
Our Lord does not mean that our Father is not
in the synagogue, or even in the corners of the
streets where the hypocrites of His day were wont
to pray--less that He is not present with
us why our families meet together morning and
evening for prayer. There is no family altar, and
no prayer-meeting, and no church and no street
corner even, where God is not to be found of them
that diligently seek Him. But God is present to
His children in a special and in a peculiar way when
they enter their closet and shut their door. The
shortest, the surest, the safest way to seek God is
to seek Him "in secret." It is not that God is
any more really in secret than He is in public:
but we are. God is wherever we are. And God
is whatever we are, in street, in synagogue, at the
family altar, in the closet. It is not that Gcd is
one thing on one side of a door of wood, and another
thing on the other side of that door: it is that we
differ so much according to which side of that door
we are on. We all feel it the instant we turn the
key, and go to our knees. In that instant we are
already new creatures. We feel that this is our
proper, and.true, and best place. We say, "This
is the house of God: this is the gate of heaven."
And if you keep the door shut, and give things time
to work, very soon your Father and you will be the
whole world to one another. And if you pursue
that; if you lay out your life to be a man of prayer;
you will make continual discoveries of practices
and expedients of secret devotion; such as will
carry you up to heights of heavenly-mindedness
that, at one time, would have been neither believable
by you, nor desirable to you. You will find out
ways that will suit you, and that could not suit
anyone else--ways of impressing your own heart
with the Being, the Greatness; the Grandeur, the
Grace, the Condescension, the Nearness; and then
the Inwardness of God. Your imagination, when
you are on your secret knees, will sweep through
heaven and earth; not so much seeking God as
seeing Him and finding Him in all His works. You
will drop down Bible history from Adam to yourself,
seeing God's shining footsteps all down the way.
You will see Jesus Christ also; and will speak with
Him with an intimacy and a confidence and an
experience not second to the intimacy and the confidence
and the experience of the disciples themselves.
You will positively people your place, of
prayer with Jesus Christ and with His Father:
and out of your place of prayer you will people
your whole life, public and private, in a way, and
to a degree, that would make your nearest friend
to think that you had gone beside yourself, if you
began to tell Him what God has done for your soul.
If we were to go over our accounts, and to arrange
our disordered papers, and to write our most private
letters in as short time as we give to our secret
devotions, we should not need to shut our door.
But our affairs are in such disorder, and in such
arrears, that we must allot some time to set them
right. And our Loud assumes in the text that the
accounts and the correspondence connected with
our religious life will need some time, and will take
some trouble. We do not need to go farther than
our own consciences for the proof of that. There
is perhaps no man in this house who would not be
put to shame if it were told what time in the day,
or in the week, he gives to secret and inward prayer.
Godly men go no further than their own closets
for the proof of their depravity, and misery, and
stupidity. Their restraint of secret prayer; their
distaste for secret prayer and a shut door; and
with that, their treatment of their Maker, of their
children, of their best friends, and of their own
souls,--all horrify them when they come to themselves,
and think of themselves in this matter of
secret prayer.
And, even after we have taken all that to heart,
and have begun to shut our door, we do not keep
it long enough shut. It is quite true that secret
prayer is the most purely spiritual of all human
employments. That is quite true. Secret prayer
is the last thing to be shut up to places and bound
down to times. At the same time we men, as
Butler says, are what we are. And it is just the
extreme spirituality of secret prayer that makes
time, as well as seclusion, absolutely indispensable
for its proper performance and for its full fruit.
If we rush through a few verses of a familiar psalm,
or a few petitions of the Lord's prayer, and then
up and out of our door as we should not be allowed
to do in the presence-chamber of our sovereign,
then we had as well,--nay, we had better,--not have
gone to our knees at all. But if we enter our closet
with half the fear, with half the wonder and awe,
with half the anxiety to be recognised and addressed
with which we would enter the palace of a prince
on earth, then, so willing is God to be approached
that He will immediately meet with us and will
bless us. Hurry, then, in our secret devotions, is
impossible. If you are in such a desperate hurry,
go and do the thing that so hurries you, and God
will wait. He is in ho hurry: He will tarry your
leisure. No! Let there be no hurry here. God is
God; and man is man. Let all men, then, take time
and thought when they would appear before God.
And then, it sometimes takes a long time even
to get the door shut; and to get the key to turn
in the rusty lock. Last week1 I became very
miserable as I saw my time slipping away, and my
vow not performed. I therefore one afternoon
stole into my coat and hat; and took my staff, and
slipped out of the house in secret. For two hours,
for an hour and three-quarters, I walked alone and
prayed: but pray as I would, I got not one step
nearer God all these seven or eight cold miles. My
guilty conscience mocked me to my face, and said
to me: Is it any wonder that God has cast off a
minister and a father like thee? For two hours
I struggled on, forsaken of God, and met neither
God nor man all that chill afternoon. When, at
last, standing still, and looking at Schiehallion
clothed in white from top to bottom, this of David
shot up into my heart: "Wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow" In a moment I was with
God. Or, rather, God, as I believe, was with me.
Till I walked home under the rising moon with my
head waters and with my heart in a flame of prayer;
naming and describing, first my own children to
God, and then yours. Two hours is a long time
to steal away from one's books and companions to
swing one's walking-stick, and to utter unavailing
ejaculations to one's self in a wintry glen: but
then; my two hours look to me now--as they tasted
to me then--the best strength and the best sweetness
of all my Christmas holiday.
And then, when secret, mental, and long-accumulated
intercession is once begun, it is like
the letting out of waters,--there is no end to it.
Why, my children almost made me forget you and
your children. And then, our friends! how bad
we all are to our friends! how short-sighted, how
cruel, how thoughtless, how inconsiderate! We
send them gifts. Our children cover their Christmas
tree with Christmas presents to our friends. Our
friends cost us a great deal of thought and trouble
and money , from time to time. We send them
sheaves of cards with all manner of affectionate
devices and verses. We take time and we write
our old friends, at home and abroad, letters full of
news and of affection on Christmas Day and on
New Year's Day. But we never pray for them!
Or, at best we pray for them in a moment of time,
and in a great hurry. Why do we do everything
for our friends but the best thing? How few of
us shut our door during all the leisure of the last
fortnight, and deliberately and particularly, and
with discrimination, and with importunity prayed
for our dearest and best friends! We discriminated
in our purchases for our friends, lest we should
slight or offend our friends: but not in our prayers.
Who in the family, who in the congregation, who
in the city, who abroad, will be surprised with some
blessing this year? Surprised--with some uexpected
providence, some despaired-of deliverance,
some cross lifted off, or left and richly blessed, some
thorn taken out of their flesh, some salvation they
had not themselves had faith to ask for? And all
because we asked, and importuned, and "shut our
door" upon God and ourselves in their behalf. A
friend of any kind, and to any extent and degree,
is something to have in this cold and lonely world.
But to have a friend who has the ear of God, and
who fills God's ear from time to time with our name
and our case,--Oh, where shall I find such a friend?
Oh, who shall find such a friend henceforth in me?
When a minister, going out for a long walk, takes
his sick-list in his pocket; or his visiting-book; or
his long roll of young comunicants, no longer
young; or when an elder or a deacon thinks of the
people of his district; or a Sabbath school teacher
his class, and the fathers and mothers of his class;
or a mistress her servants; or a father his children;
or a friend his friends; or an enemy his enemies;--
many a knock will come to his door before he is
done, many a mile will he have walked before he is
done. Our Lord took all night up in a mountain
over the names of His twelve disciples. And since
the day of His ascension nearly nineteen hundred
years ago He has been in continual intercession in
heaven for all those who have been in intercession
for themselves and for other men on earth. Day
and night;--He slumbers not nor sleeps: keeping
Israel by His unceasing, particular, discriminating,
importunate intercession.
Secret prayer is such an essentially spiritual duty
that the Bible nowhere lays down laws and rules
as to times or as to places for such prayer.
The Bible treats us as men, and not as children.
The Bible is at pains to tell us how this saint of God
did in his day; and then, that other saint in his
day and in his circumstances: how Abraham did,
and Jacob, and David, and Daniel, and Jesus Christ,
and His disciples and apostles. The Bible is bold
to open the shut door of all these secret saints of
God, and to let us see them and hear them on their
knees. Abraham for Sodom: Jacob at the Jabbok:
Daniel with his open window: Jesus on the mountain
all night, and in the garden at midnight. Peter
on the housetop: and Paul, in the prison and in
the workshop, for his hearers and for his readers.
And then, we are left free to choose our own times
and places,--few or many, open or secret, vocal
or mental, just as we need just as we like, and just
as suits us. Only,--surely nature itself, common
sense itself, old habit from childhood itself, must
teach and constrain us to keep our door shut for a
moment or two in the morning: a moment or two
alone and apart with Him Who is about our path
and about our bed. And if we once taste the
strength, and the liberty, and the courage, and the
light of God's countenance that always streams
down on him who is found of God on his secret
knees early in the morning, then that will be a
sweet and a happy day that does not send us back
to our knees more than once before it is over.
And then at night,--what an indecency it is,
what folly! How we shall gnash our teeth at
ourselves one day to remember how a dinner-party,
or music in our neighbour's house or in our
own; a friend in at supper; a late talk; a storybook
to finish before we sleep;--how such things
as these should have been let rob us of our nightly
self-examination, of nightly washing from the
past day's sin, and of our nightly renewed peace
with God! What do the angels, and the saints
think of our folly? If our fathers and mothers are
let look down to see what their children are doing
would anything darken heaven to them like seeing
the things that serve their children for an excuse
to go to sleep without self-examination, confession
of sin, and prayer? Whether they see us or
no, there is One who says over us many a graceless
and prayerless night: -" Oh! if thou hadst known!
even thou in this thy day!" Let us begin this
very Sabbath night. Let us shut our door tonight.
We are in no hurry of business or of pleasure
to-night. Let us go back upon the morning,
upon the forenoon, upon the whole day, upon
the week, upon the year. Let us recollect for whom,
and for what, we prayed in secret this morning,--
or did not pray. Let us recall what we read, what
we heard, and with what feelings: with whom we
conversed, about what: all the things that
tried us, tempted us, vexed us, or helped, comforted,
and strengthened us. Let us do that to-night,
and we shall not want matter for repentance and
prayer to-night: nor for prayer, and purpose, and
a plan of life for to-morrow. "You are not to
content yourself," says a Queen's Physician to us
concerning the soul, "you are not to content yourself
with a hasty general review of the day, but you
must enter upon it with deliberation. Begin with
the first action of the day; and proceed, step by
step; and let no time, place, or action be overlooked.
An examination," this expert says, "so
managed, will, in a little time, make you as different
from yourself as a wise man is different from an
idiot. It will give you such a newness of mind,
such a spirit of wisdom, and such a desire of perfection,
as you were an entire stranger to before."
"And thy Father, Which seeth in secret, shall
reward thee openly." There is nothing that more
humiliates us; there is nothing that more makes us
blush for shame than the way our Lord sometimes
speaks about rewarding us for what we do. His
words about our wages and our rewards shock us
and pain us exceedingly. We know well,--we shall
never forget,--that, after we have done all, we are
still the most unprofitable of servants, and the most
deep of debtors. At the same time,--there it
stands: "Thy Father shall reward thee openly."
Where? When? How shall He reward us openly?
Perhaps in our children,--perhaps in our children's
salvation; their eternal salvation, to which they
might never have attained but for our secret, unceasing,
mental prayer. That would be a reward we
could not refuse! Nor feel any humiliation for, other
than a most sweet and everlasting humiliation! On
the other hand, what would a kingdom be to us if
anything had gone wrong with our children? What
would heaven itself be to us, if our children were
not there with us? And what a reward, what
wages, if they are all there!
Or perhaps this may be it,--that when all shut
doors are opened, and all secrets told out, we may
be let see what we owe to one another's intercession
It may be part of the first joyful surprise
of heaven to see what we did for other men and
what they did for us. "Pray for them that despitefully
use you," our Lord advises us. Well, what
a surprise it will be to you and to him if some one
is brought up and introduced to you whose secret
prayers for you have been your salvation all the
time you were thinking he was your enemy, as you
were his.
But who shall tell all that is in our Lord's mind
and intention when He says, "Thy Father which
seeth in secret shall reward thee openly"? And
when He goes on to say, "For there is nothing
covered, that shall not be revealed: neither hid
that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever
ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the
light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear
in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops."
