He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91.1

Once again I am devoting 21 days to prayer and hopefully, a more lasting fasting commitment.  Twice a year my church encourages us refocus on the Lord by seeking Him and spending time in His presence. January is the perfect   time to reflect and ponder God’s  gift of  my life. It is  a time of waiting  between the end of  old things and new beginnings.  January’s snow and cold which keep me inside are  never dark,  or boring or  dreary because I usually find  new pieces in the wintry landscape. I   delight how yesterday’s snow  defines the shape of tree branches, softens their stiffness  and fills in  empty spaces, like a child’s coloring pages. 

We began our 21 Days of prayer with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:  When you pray, go to your secret place, shut the door and you will find the Father already there waiting for you.  “  For 21 days God  invites  us to a secret rendezvous with Himself.  Jesus encourages us to find for ourselves how to well under the shadow of the Almighty of Psalm 91. If I could put this into a  Gabbert version, it might  be, “ Get out of your space and go  to God’s place. “ And shut the door!

When we had a young, active and noisy family and I needed time out, I’d retreat  into the bathroom, lock the door and take a bath.  Ever since I have  tried to find  the perfect secret spot in my home to meet with God, where I could shut a door and have  marvelous , spine tingling encounters with the Lord.  Sometimes it’s been  my cluttered office; sometimes it’s  the little library at the top of the stairs. This private nook doesn’t have a door, but I’ve hung quilts along the railing and it is like a nest for my soul. Unfortunately,  it’s so cozy I fall asleep instead of diligently seeking Jesus. Now that I live alone  I  wonder why  in the world do I need to close this secret door. Isn’t God ever present in time and space? Didn’t Jesus promise never to leave us alone so no matter where I am, the Father and He  already are.  Can’t I dedicate the entire floor plan as God’s secret place to dwell in?  

No, I can’t for the simple reason that Jesus doesn’t  agree with my assessment. He  said it very plainly. Go to your secret place,  shut the door and be with the Father.  But, I continue to argue with myself,  Jesus was addressing  men and women who lived in the first century in  heavily populated  Israel, in  crowded homes with few rooms and fewer doors.   Our spacious American homes (even smaller apartments) were non existent in Jesus’ time.  Privacy is a modern concept. Nevertheless,  Jesus spoke of shutting  doors  when we pray because He was teaching how to engage the Almighty Father intimately and personally away from everything else. What a radical idea! I wonder how his disciples reacted to this Word.   Peter mutters, “Lord, what door?  I’m a fisherman and spend more time on a boat than at home.”  A woman reminds Him, “ You see how many people I live with.  I can’t find even a corner to myself, let alone  shut a door, ” A Pharisee  looks down his nose and snarks,  “ Why Rabbi,  you’re always moving from one location  to another and have no place to yourself except those offered to you. “

No, Jesus did not have a roof over His head, but He knew the secret place of prayer and modeled it for the disciples. Weary and needing His Time Out with the Father Jesus would  often get away from  them,  from the incessantly  demanding  crowd and  the societal chaos to spend whole nights praying to the Father on the mountain.  The “door”  was  a symbolic act of  shutting out  everything  and everyone else but His Father. After Jesus spent  hours  closeted with His Father, He returned to  his friends to teach, preach and do o miraculous works. Prayer in God’s secret place precedes the Mighty Hand of the Lord  at work in the world.   

As an aside, and almost inexplicably for Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6, the very last prayers of Jesus were extremely public.  He prayed and instituted the  new covenant in the Upper Room and openly shared the Passover feast  with the disciples. He cried out to the Father  in Gethsemane , a place   well known to his enemies. He breathed His last forgiving prayer on the cross erected where everyone cold see and mock Him. He was placed in a tomb and a massive stone was placed to keep His body  in and his followers out.  But three days later the grave  was empty, Jesus was not in the tomb and the last  barrier between a holy God and sinful man was  demolished.  Jesus had shut the door to death forever and opened it wide for us to come to the Father.

Shutting the door is an intentional, symbolic act.  By His death and resurrection Jesus won for us the unheard of privilege  of direct entry  into  the Father’s secret place.  I shut the door  as an act of my will,  choosing  to exclude every  distractions and misdirection. I shut out the cell phone chirping  yet another message and I unplug from Google tempting me to  waste a lot of time on   rabbit trails. I leave behind my dog demanding a walk,  today’s dishes in the sink,  laundry piling up and fly specks on windows.  I shut out the unopened mail and unpaid bills,  new cobwebs trailing on the ceiling and the last  spam phone call. I  shut out  confusion about what’s next for me. When I shut the door to my secret place I can leave the loneliness and grief outside for a little while so that in His secret place God can comfort and  heal my broken heart.    Sometimes I have  to even shut  the  Bible chapter and verse I meant to  read earlier.    Shutting the door tells the Father I want to exclude  demanding  a piece of my soul  so that, so that,   I have exclusivity with Jesus alone. I exclude all else  for the joy of being exclusively His.

How can we refuse  the Lord’s  wonderful invitation abide with Him?  Enter in, Shut the door and stay a while longer. Isn’t such mystery and knowledge   almost too wonderful to bear?