In The Secret Place Of Prayer

O Saviour! Who, from earth’s conflicting voices,
Art calling me to Thy seclusion sweet;
Give me a heart that, still and calm, rejoices
To sit, with Mary, at Thy blessed feet.
For marvels of this secret place are known
To him who in it dwells with Thee, alone.

In the secret of His presence we may lay bare to Him, without fear, the inmost secrets of the soul. This is what we cannot do even to the dearest friend on Earth. It is what we sometimes dare not do. Our lips are sealed for very shame. But freely and unrestrainedly we can confide our most secret shames and sadness to the ear of our listening Lord. It is this that makes the prayer chamber a place of such infinite relief to an overburdened spirit.

God Knows All

There is a most suggestive argument in the epistle to the Hebrews that makes God’s perfect knowledge of us the very ground of our freedom in prayer. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” What then? “Let us, therefore, tremble before Him and shrink from His eye?” Not so. “Let us, therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” A surprising argument, but a very comforting one. It may look the very opposite of comforting to remind us of One whose knowledge of us is so minute; and so, when we go on to read of the sympathy of a tempted Christ, we might suppose that that consideration was brought in merely to neutralize the oppressiveness of the Omniscience. But the truth is that even Divine sympathy would be of very little use to us unless it is based upon a perfect knowledge of every element in the case; otherwise it would be an ignorant sympathy, and an ignorant sympathy can do no one much real good.

He Welcomes Sinners

What most of all prevents our coming boldly unto the throne of grace is our deep consciousness of sin. An overwhelming sense of sin makes us doubtful of a welcome if we should draw nigh. Prayer to the Infinitely Holy One, who is also the Infinitely Knowing One, seems almost an insult when uttered by creatures so unholy as we feel ourselves to be. But it is that Holy One Himself who says, “Out all that consciousness of My knowledge of your worst as an argument on the other side; precisely because I do know all, trust Me to be able to help you when you come.” The argument is just; for if He knows all about us, He knows more than merely our sins. He knows our difficulties, our infirmities, our struggles, our temptations, our conflicts, our longings, our aspirations; and His heart is going out to us in deep compassionating love, even when (judging Him by ourselves) we think of Him as standing sternly aloof from us, coldly and critically and accusingly looking on from a distance.

Surely there is nothing so little understood as the Heart of God, else we would never be afraid to go to Him with our sins, as well as with our griefs, for there is nothing in which He spends His blessed life more gladly than in pardoning and helping sinners. The largeness of His heart does not wait until the worthiness of man can meet it. He deals with us in a way of transcendent generosity. His love is always far ahead of our prayers. He “prevents us with the blessings of goodness”; and, when any downcast heart cries out to Him in its sinfulness, quicker than a lightning flash His love leaps to the conclusion of mercy, and ere the broken prayer is half uttered, the mercy is on its way.

If we go to God at all, we must, like the prodigal, go in our rags, and hunger, and sin, and utter need. But the compassionate Father, whose heart has never changed, will see us while we are yet “a great way off”—for He has been on the outlook for us, waiting for our coming—and He will shorten the distance between us and Him by going forth to meet us, and ere we have got half of our weeping confession out, He will be calling for the robe, and the ring, and the fatted calf, and giving us such a welcome as we never hoped to find.

Allured up to the mountain top, with God alone, apart,
There Spirit meeteth spirit, there speaketh heart to heart,
There God and I—none other; His secret place I find
A home of isolation sweet, all trouble left behind.