Go To Your Room; Stay In the Closet

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’                   Jeremiah 33:3 NKJV

Solutions are found in God's presence. He tells us to call to Him. This is more than an invitation. It's a summons to the throne of the King. Back in the day, you could only approach a king if he said you could. The King is compelling us to inquire of Him and call to Him.  The possibilities are limitless.

The question is how bad do we want to know those things that we cannot figure out on our own? More than that, how much do we want to know our Father, the King?

How do we approach Him? Jesus would be the one to answer that. This is what He said:

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.               Matthew 6:6 NIV

We've heard the phrase "come out of the closet." But I like the way the KJV translates that verse.

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

Nah, let's not come out of the closet. We need to stay in the closet and not come out until we know that we've heard from Him. There is wisdom in the closet. There are solutions in the closet. There is love in the closet. There is a reality check in the closet—He reveals who He is and who we are and where we need be.

The closet can be any private place. Sometimes my closet is in the car on the highway. I'm relaxed and alone and not overly distracted. At home my closet is a quilt that a friend gave me when I moved to Alabama. I spread the quilt on the floor and that's my spot. Then I may put a blanket over me and kneel or lay facedown. It's my quiet, cozy prayer place. It's my altar.

The 40 days of prayer is not passive like the study of joy in which we were just reading scriptures. This one is very active—after reading about prayer, we pray. If you don't have a private place of prayer, do something about it. To quote Woody from Toy Story, " If you don't have one, GET one!" It may be a literal closet, or the bathroom, laundry room, or under a blanket.

Go to your room, my friend. Stay in the closet. There will be blessings waiting for you when you come out.

Father, thank You for meeting us in the secret place. Help me and my friends to find our special place with You. I go to my closet and pray for them. Bless each one of us to recognize the importance of time alone with You. I ask that You will open our ears to hear You say, "call to me." Thank You for building our faith and an excitement about prayer so that we won't just read about prayer, but we will pray. Oh, and thank You that when we pray in private, the results of our prayer will be seen in public. Thank You that I can request all of this in Jesus' name. You are a kind and gracious God. Amen!