| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 7 |
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Prayer is a great deal more than we sometimes suppose it to be. We may have thought of it as little more than a daily routine of devotion. We rise in the morning, and through force of habit kneel down for a minute or two of what we call praying. We run hurriedly through a form of words, without giving serious thought to what we are saying. We scarcely know when we are through what we have asked God for. Indeed, our petition was more rote work – there were no strong desires in our hearts corresponding to the words we used. We say we have been praying. Have we? That is not what Jesus meant when he said, “Enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father.” We may have been in the inner chamber, in a literal sense, and the door may have been shut, but we have not been with our Father.
Christ means that when you enter the inner room, you and God are alone together. The world is far away. Its noises break not in upon your ear. You have put your business, your ambitions, and your pleasures, far from you. No eye sees you. No ear hears what you say. Then God is near, and you are alone with him. When General Gordon was with his army in the Sudan, it is said there was half an hour each morning when a handkerchief lay outside the general’s tent and the whole camp knew the meaning of the little signal, and religiously respected it. No foot dared to enter the tent while the handkerchief lay there.
No sentinel could better have guarded the portals. Any message, however pressing, had to wait until the signal was lifted. Everyone knew that God and Gordon were alone together within, and not the most thoughtless man in the camp would dare intrude. No wonder that when the general come out of his tent the glory of heaven seemed to shine on his face, the fragrance of heaven to cling to his garments, and that he had such a peace and such power in his life.
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