Prayer Closet

Matthew 6:6 “But when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

The Lord keeps bring up ‘prayer closet’ to me and I, admittedly and foolishly, kept pushing it aside. Just so you know, you cannot outlast God. I looked up scripture and other resources this morning to see what the Bible (and those with far more wisdom than I) had to say about it.

There are those that believe your prayer closet is a specific place, room, area you go to pray. I used to feel I was lacking somehow because I didn’t have a designated prayer closet. What kind of serious Christian prayer warrior could I be without one? I beat myself up with that until I realized my ‘prayer closet’ was any place I was privately and sincerely communicating with the Lord. My heart is my prayer closet, (my) inner room. I literally take it with me everywhere I go.

I have long been a people watcher and could sit for hours ‘watching’ and creating ‘lives’ for people around me to amuse myself whether sitting in an airport gate waiting area, my child’s school activities or anywhere. Being alone in a crowd is not difficult. My prayer closet is as functional in a crowd as it is in the quiet of my empty house. It’s not so much about the surroundings as it is the private communication and connection with God.

The scripture tells us to close the door once we are in our prayer closet. ”…Go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father…” This I believe to be key. By ‘shutting the door’ we are focusing on the Lord and prayer alone. We are not open to distraction. This is a personal spiritual discipline, not a location. The enemy is going to try to distract us regardless of where we are physically located.

Don’t misunderstand; I am not saying we shouldn’t have a quiet place to retreat from the world for our private time of prayer. I especially enjoy my time with God in the dark of my office. I am saying, however, we are not limited to that, we can have that wonderful communion wherever and whenever we choose.

We cannot look at Matthew 6:6 without Mathew 6:5. Jesus said what He did about praying in your prayer closet in context of telling us not be like the legalistic religious leaders that stood on the street corner making productions of their prayers so all that saw would know how holy they were. Prayer is not a spectacle for which to be admired, it is a personal communication with our Lord.

This brings me to the incredulous information I found in my research time, instructions online on how to build your own prayer closet. I kid you not! I’ll share one in closing, and then I’m heading off to my built-in prayer closet.

How to Make a Miniature Prayer Closet

1 Find or build a suitable-sized cabinet that you feel is adequate for housing your holy pictures. Hang or place this against the wall in an area where you can safely open it and spend time looking into it in undisturbed prayer or meditation. If you have relatives or roommates, you may want to consider a cabinet that locks. (HUH?)

2 Install a shelf in the cabinet a reasonable height from the bottom. You'll want to put a small shelf underneath it for storing your holy book or notebooks.

3 Use the top part of the shelf to create an altar. Use statues, pictures, or other sacred items to add to the atmosphere of your sacred space.

All that said, I’m thankful I carry my prayer closet with me, I never leave home without it!