Words of Life: An Enduring LegacySample

Go to your room.

When I was a young member of the corps cadet brigade (a teenage Bible study group), these verses worried me. I was an enthusiastic Salvationist who attended at least two open-air meetings most weeks, when we stood on street corners to be seen and heard by others. It took a while for me to realise that there were significant differences between our efforts at evangelism and the ways of the Pharisees.

When we go deep into prayer and communion with our heavenly Father, we enter a realm of intimacy that belies our low humanity, and so it is right that we do so in private, so that what is said and done in those cherished moments of intimacy remains between us and our Lord. He invites us to come with open hearts and open minds to see and hear from him personally.

I have a concern that in Christian circles we sometimes say things like, ‘I will pray for you’ almost as a platitude, rather than it being a commitment to intercede for that situation. For me, that is wrong, because if we say we will and then we don’t, we are effectively not speaking truth. When we say we will pray, we should do exactly that.

Jesus calls us to find a place – it can be a room, but equally it can be the car or some quiet outside space – and to go to that place with the specific intention of communing with him. He wants us to talk and listen, sharing the matters of our life, both significant and ordinary, and he wants to impart his wisdom to us as we listen.

Reflect on this:

‘God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil.’

- E.M. Bounds