Why Pray Alone?

   In the last chapter we thought together about some of the results which come when we pray together. In this chapter we want to think about the important place which secret prayer should have in every believer's life.

   There are many important things which the Lord wants to give us which (psychologically) result only from group prayer. To refresh our minds, here are a few of the things we found as we looked into the meaning of Matthew 18:19, 20.

   When we meet to pray with someone else, the Lord is present as a third party. Together we learn to talk, to Him and with Him, in openness and simplicity and without self-consciousness. We leave our heavy burdens at His feet by sharing and agreeing together. Our fears and anxious worries melt away. He speaks and together we learn to listen. He gives us guidance and direction and spiritual healing. He makes us ready to receive all He has to give to us. We acquire new brothers and sisters. We belong to a new family and we begin to learn to take spiritual family responsibilities for one another.

   One of the most important things we learned was that even our weaknesses become sources of strength when we are consciously there in His presence, because need is the golden door of opportunity through which our Saviour meets us face to face.

   All this and more comes from just being there together. All this and more comes from being there, consciously in

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His presence. All this and more awaits those who will answer His call to come apart with Him — alone.

   "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past . . . The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land . . . Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice" (Song of Solomon 2:10-14).

   The Good Shepherd knows what His sheep need. They need the pastures of being together with one another, but they also need the quiet waters of intimate security — security which comes from being alone with Him in the secret places.

   "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me."

   When have you heard His voice and followed Him into His secret place? When have you found rest in just being with Him?

   Being human, we tend to be heavy-handed in one direction or the other. Depending upon our personality bents, some of us tend either toward always being with people or always being alone. These preferences carry over directly into our prayer life. It is just as eccentric to leave all praying until prayer meeting night as it is to insist that religion is a private matter and do all our praying alone. Actually it is quite possible to become so ingrown in our relationships with God that we "escape" to the closet, labeling it virtue.

   Recently such a young woman came for counseling, and I discovered that due to strained and broken relationships with loved ones, she had almost entirely withdrawn from people. She was finding her "comfort" alone in her room, meditating and reading and praying. But the results of all this were introspective and unhealthy.

   None of us should hide behind the alibi that "this is the way I am." None of us should say that due to our own

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personality, we are unable to be at ease in the presence of other believers, or that we are unable to pray with them. By the same token none of us should say that we cannot learn to be alone in a room for an hour or more with God. In time and with willingness anyone can learn to do both. To have one without the other is like having day without night. They complement one another, they help us to become whole persons.

   But the Shepherd will not drive you. He will not drive you either to share the joys of praying with others, nor will He drive you to the intimacy of prayer alone. He will wait. He will draw you and keep drawing you until you begin to respond. He waits for you to begin to speak to Him, and to respond from love's freedom, not from love's compulsion. When you are ready, you will find that He has been waiting for you, conscious of you all the time.

   There are several practical points which may help you to make this practice of secret prayer part of your daily life.

1. Have a definite place to pray alone. Every time you pass that place, whether it is by a chair, or your bedside, an unused room, a little closet, your desk or your car, you will be reminded that both physical and spiritual refreshment await you there.

2. Anticipate meeting One who loves you in a personal intimate way. Before you arrive at this special place, let your mind constantly say, "I am going to meet Him, I am going to be consciously aware of Him." After you are there, say: "Here in this quiet place, He can show me Himself. I am His. I can put aside all else and worship You, my Lord, and my God."

3. Let your prayers be semi-audible. You are speaking to a Person, and hearing your own voice will keep your thoughts centered on Him, although sometimes there will be only deep unspoken torrents of love and adoration welling up from within.

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4. Use a daily devotional book, and use some kind of study book to give you needed direction in your daily Bible reading. (See footnote below.)

   Here it might be well to ask yourself, What does worship really mean to me? I fail to understand how it is possible to give the Lord full attention when we are alone, unless we know something of the real meaning of conscious worship.

   In my not-too-long-ago-do-it-yourself approach to God, I used to congratulate myself on the fact of my daily faithfulness in having a Quiet Time. My spiritual temperature went up or down as I did or did not keep my Quiet Time. And when I spoke to others, I gave the impression that I always had a successful Quiet Time, and was, of course, always "victorious." This was far from the truth.

   The truth, I am now joyfully discovering, is that even when I am false, He is true. I change, but He never changes. Have you discovered that no matter what you are like, He is always the same? His faithfulness is as sure as the law of gravitation. This discovery will turn your attention away from yourself to Him. And then, when you stop paying attention to yourself, you find that He is your victory. He is the Giver, and with Him come all the gifts that you have been seeking piecemeal! They are all in Him.

   Through all the years of my do-it-yourself period, with all my many attempts to "die to sin" I was still alive, and very much alive. Through all my sincere attempts to "abide in Christ" I was still too often expressing my own selfish spirit, and not His spirit of holy love.

   And then I discovered — worship.

   True worship takes place within the quietness of the individual. True worship is subjection to Jesus Christ. True

Daily devotional books: My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers (Dodd-Mead); Our Daily Walk, F.B. Meyer (Zondervan); Share My Pleasant Stones, Eugenia Price (Zondervan).

Guides to Bible Reading: Scripture Union (3 Cawthra Street, Toronto, Ont., Canada). Who Is This Man?, Rosalind Rinker (Zondervan).

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worship depends upon the kind of God you worship. True worship is not conditioned by any religious atmosphere. It is like a well of water springing up from within the heart of the lover for the Beloved.

   It took a negative form of worship to open my eyes to the meaning of true worship. I was visiting my first Chinese temple in the city of Shanghai. Inside, it was dark and shadowy and lined with double rows of dusty idols on heavy pedestals. At the far end was a tall loft and a giant gilded idol was set among heavy draperies that covered all but its feet. A Chinese woman came in to worship. She burned incense, she waved it before the dumb idol, she prostrated her little self before the huge fifty-foot god and waited for an answer. Was there any? There was none.

   So that was "worshiping idols." Suddenly I knew that the God I worshiped was alive, that He was a Person who responded to me and to whom I could respond.

   But did I worship the Ever-Living One?

   Did I really know what worship meant?

   Suddenly I wanted to get out of that temple and go home. I wanted to go into my own room and close the door and lock it. I wanted to get on my knees with my face to the floor, like that little Chinese woman. But unlike her, I wanted to worship the living God who created and sustains all life, and who has revealed Himself as He is in the Person of Jesus Christ. I wanted to be quiet and let all the love and adoration and worship of my heart go out to Him in a way that I had never done before.

   Worship to me had meant "Sunday morning worship service." I wonder sometimes now what that means, for I have learned that it is in silence, holy silence, that my heart pours out its best love and worship to my Lord and my God. I have learned that worship is that honor, respect and adoration a small earthling like me can feel and give to the Almighty Creator.

   My concept of worship has grown and deepened, and

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this is now the most important part of my Quiet Time. It is out of this personal worship that I find myself ready to share and be a part of a group of God's children.

   In the Appendix of this book, you will find a seven-day study entitled, "Aids to Personal Worship." This material was prepared in booklet form for use with college students on the west coast, and is a simple, step by step devotional guide to personal worship. It is a study of God's character. Each day you will make use of what you learned the day before, and you will learn to worship.

   It is when I am worshiping God that my heart is cleansed, that I am assured of His great love which has taken full responsibility for me. It is then that the Cross and the sufferings of Christ arouse my heart to know more and more of the depth of His love. It is when I am worshiping and lost in wonder, and my conscious and unconscious self pours out love, that I become a whole person. It is when I have thus worshiped God that I begin to know the meaning of "Abide in me and I in you."

   Before I grasped this there was endless self-effort; now it is a matter of resting in Christ.

Chapter Eight  ||  Table of Contents