just you and God

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:6

Jesus practiced what He preached. There are numerous episodes in the gospels where we are shown Jesus practicing this pattern of alone time communing with the Father in prayer. He often chose to get away from the crowds and to seek a place of solitude in order to do this well (see Matthew 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12). Being alone with God to enter into serious prayer is a healthy spiritual discipline.

But this command from Jesus to go to your room and shut the door in order to pray alone is increasingly difficult in our “always on” culture of non-stop communication. Interruptions are literally always in our pocket with smartphones. Most of us live very busy lives, even in “retirement”. We have to create some significant margin if we are going to pray well and obey what Jesus tells us in this teaching about how to pray. But honestly, prayer doesn’t feel very productive sometimes. But Jesus tells us it is and that it is work best done when our souls are undistracted and our hearts are focused solely on God. Yes, I can say sentence prayers while driving to work. But this is not the same. Yes, I can say a short prayer over my email inbox before diving into my daily schedule, but that is not the kind of communion Jesus is speaking of here. I’ve got to get alone to know this.

It is very important to regularly punctuate my schedule with alone times. I live in a city, so wilderness remote options are few. But a prayer walk in a park, arriving home an hour earlier than anyone else does, or simply arising before dawn and praying at the kitchen table while my family sleeps... all these can open my life to this important “prayer getaway” that Jesus insists His followers must do. Jesus promises such prayer is rewarded. I believe it is worth the effort because God is very, very good and time communing with Him is the best part of any day!