The Secret Place

The Secret Place
Matthew 6:6

There are times when nobody understands my emotional turmoil. I try to verbalize to others the things that I’m struggling with and the things that tear at my heart and they just don’t quite get it!! It is in these moments that I am reminded of a place where I can lay at the feet of God naked… fully exposed … knowing that even if my words and actions don’t align with His, I can release my heaviness to Him and allow my wounds to be visible because He is the one who can heal and restore. I don’t have to worry about Him judging me because of my reactions and responses to my situations in my broken condition because he knows me the best. God will allow me to have my moment to rant and rave … scream and cry … grunt and moan if in that moment that’s what I “think” I need to do. He simply waits for me to release so that He can reveal those things that He wants me to know to take me to that new place in Him.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has 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 (KJV)

Matthew 6:6 likens our place of prayer to a closet. Why a closet and not some other room in the house? When I lived with my parents I shared a room with my brother and there were times where I wanted to study my Bible or just be alone and it was hard to do that in our bedroom because I was always interrupted. I eventually started going to the bathroom to have my private time with God and myself and even that wasn’t private enough because we only had 1 bathroom and at some point someone was going to have to use it and I would have to come out. After reading Matthew 6 where is says, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet…” I became excited because it makes so much sense! The CLOSET!!! Why didn’t I think of that?!? It is the least likely place anyone would think to look for a person. The closet … that place where we store our clothes, shoes and other things we desire. The closet … that place that many sometimes refer to as the place our “skeletons are kept, you know, those things you don’t’ want anyone to know the truth about. The closet … that place that many come out of because they no longer want to pretend to be someone that they are not. Yep, the closet is a pretty good place to go. There is a “place,” whether that be physically or figuratively speaking that we should be able to go to to connect with God so that we can hear from Him. Nobody needs to know because this is “the secret place” where you and God can meet up and nobody would think to find you there.

I have heard people say that what you see on the outside is a result of what has happened and/or is happening on the inside. The end of verse 6 confirms this when it says,

“…and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

The secret… the thing that nobody knows or is aware of is that you know that it’s not about them and they can’t help you. The fact that we go to our secret place let’s God know that we know and understand that he is our source… He is the one who has the power to deliver us from the bondage of the enemy… He is the one who can heal our wounds … He is the only one who TRULY understands us … He is the one who knows every detail of our beginning, middle and end. When God sees us placing our faith and trust in Him by meeting Him in the secret place, He ministers to us in that place and allows others to witness the outward transformation of a life that simply took advantage of connecting with God in the secret place.

© Copyright LaTrisha E. Milton October 21, 2008