“Mom, we’re home. Where are you?” my daughter shouted as she and her sister burst through the door.

I was usually waiting for them in the kitchen, often with fresh-baked cookies, when they came home from school. But I wasn’t there that day. I was in the bedroom. With the door shut tight. And the louvred door to the bedroom closet also closed.

That’s where I was—in the closet!

Performance Art

No, I wasn’t playing hide-and-seek with my kids. I had been inside the closet praying.

As a fairly new Christian, quite unacquainted with the Bible, I had come across some puzzling passages on prayer in Matthew 6. The only Bible available to me at the time was a King James Version, and its archaic language made the verses even more confusing.

It read, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6 King James Version).

The writing style felt awkward to me, and the instructions Jesus gave seemed odd. But I was so eager to do whatever would please Him that I literally went into my closet, shut the door and prayed.

If I’d read the earlier verses in the chapter, and especially if I’d read them in a more reader-friendly version like the New International Version, I might have realized that Jesus had condemned the Pharisees for praying in public places so they would be seen and admired for their apparent piety. Sometimes, trumpets were even blown to draw attention!

The instructions Jesus gave to His followers about praying in secret simply pointed out the difference between prayer as a performance and a humble prayer from the heart. He knew that the Pharisees would never choose to pray in an unseen place like a closet!

His Master’s Voice

I was soon back in the kitchen where my kids were waiting for their after-school hugs and the latest batch of cookies. But even as they shared stories from their day at school, my mind kept going back to the prayer issue.

Praying in the closet did seem a bit strange, and I knew there must be more to prayer than I’d already learned at the church our family had recently started attending.

But I knew it was extremely important because prayer put me in touch with the God who created the whole world. I knew I could come to Him for guidance, comfort and wisdom, and I had been taught that He always answers prayer.

He may not respond as quickly or in exactly the way we’d like, but He always works things out for the best. And He invites us to come to Him with our requests: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Jesus expects His followers to do what He says. I had just read something about obedience in Luke 17 where Jesus told a story about a servant and his master.

The servant had spent a hard day of work in the fields before entering his master’s house at suppertime. The servant presumably was hungry and weary, but his day’s work hadn’t really ended yet, not as far as the master was concerned.

Jesus asks: “Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’?” (Luke 17:7-8).

In the culture of those days, the servant was expected to work until he was told he could rest. He had no say about what he could do. His master gave an order, and the servant did it, no questions asked. He did what he was expected to do.

Quality Time

For us today, the verses remind us that God expects certain things of Christians and one of those things is prayer. But we have a different relationship with God since we experience the joy of being friends of Jesus.

In John 15:15, Jesus said: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father, I have made known to you.”

Prayer is part of that huge package, and it is far more than a duty. It is a life-giving connection to our heavenly Father who loves and cares for us. We have no reason to be proud when we follow God’s instructions. We have no reason to boast about it like the Pharisees did. We are only doing what we should be doing as children of God.

I’m not implying that all types of pride should be condemned. For instance, we feel a natural sense of pride when we work hard to complete a difficult project or when we put in many hours to accomplish a goal. There is usually an internal sense of pride that comes from doing a good job, although self-satisfaction may be a better word to describe that feeling.

Nor is praying in public a sin. We hear our pastors and others pray out loud during church services. That’s not the kind of prayer that Jesus criticized when He called the Pharisees “hypocrites” in Matthew 6. He was making the point that it was wrong for the Pharisees or anyone else to flaunt their good deeds and try to appear better than others.

When we pray with a humble attitude, we are acknowledging that we aren’t wise enough or strong enough to do His will without asking for His help. We need God, and we turn to Him in prayer without broadcasting it to the world around us.

Demands of the day may make us stressed. Sudden fear may threaten our peace. Unexpected expenses may cause worry. But in all these things and more, we can go to our Lord with the confidence that He will calm our troubled hearts and provide what we need.

So, let’s spend quality time every day praying to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. God will hear us no matter what we need.

And we don’t even have to hide in a closet to ask Him.

Photo: Bits and Splits/stock.Adobe.co