“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

-Matthew 6:6 (ESV)

Prayer happens in many forms, sometimes with others, sometimes alone, sometimes in voice, and sometimes in what Brennan Manning once called “the silence beyond words.” It also can happen in many places, really all places. It certainly can be outside the walls of a church, and often outside of any walls at all, in the presence of God’s natural creation.

Wherever prayer happens there is a special kind, the kind recommended by Jesus in the above verse. This is the prayer we offer up to our Lord in solitude. It is perhaps the most intimate form of all those entered by believers seeking to communicate with the Divine. Unfortunately, in 21^st century America it may also be the most difficult type of prayer to consistently pursue.

We live in a frenetic age, full of busyness and information overload. While some of that has been altered for a time by the pandemic through which we are all temporarily living, we can be sure this fundamental aspect of contemporary society will reassert itself once that pandemic has passed. Living in an age marked by too much activity and too much information has made seeking the kind of “secret prayer” Jesus commands us to pursue more difficult than perhaps during any other time and place in human history. 

There are three ways to make it happen, anyway, that I have personally found to be fruitful. I suspect that at least one of them may work for you, as it has for me. We can still find our own “prayer closets,” even amid a culture that often seems custom-designed to prevent us from finding them.

The first, and certainly the most beautiful, locale I have found to go to be alone with God is in a large wooded area in a park or reserve. It must be a place with clearly marked trails, but large enough that if I walk a good distance in I can expect to not see another person for long periods of time. This allows me to talk to God audibly while passing at my own pace through one of the loveliest of His works: a forest.

The second place to practice solitary prayer is alone in my car. Years ago, in the days before today’s integrated cell phones, this was a bit problematic when speaking to the Lord out loud. Frankly, I tended to stop praying when I was at a light or caught in traffic. I must confess that was because I did not want to look like some crazy person talking animatedly to himself in an empty car! Thankfully, the advent of higher technology in communications has made this a non-issue, as it now sometimes seems nearly every other driver I see is happily talking away to someone. Today I can freely talk to God in my car without fear of looking like some kind of nut (not that this should ever have stopped me, anyway, I suppose.)

Place number three is for when I am, voluntarily or otherwise these days, at home. My prayer closet at home is the shower. I have found that when I am taking a shower other people in our house generally tend to leave me alone, unless perhaps the place is on fire! For the price of a slightly (OK, maybe a little more than “slightly”) higher water bill I can talk, alone, to Jesus for 20 minutes or so every day. I just put the exhaust fan on, speak a little lower, and no one knows I am in my little prayer “water closet.”

So these are my three personal prayer closets, the places of “in secret” intimate communication with my Lord. Right now, in this time of Covid-19, you may suspect I am largely using “Place number three” and you would be right but I hope to, in the not too distant future, to be back to using more of the others.

I also hope one or more of each of these suggestions might be of benefit to you as you seek to know your Creator and Redeemer more intimately, in secret. His command in Matthew 6:6 is one of the least burdensome and most rewarding in scripture, in my opinion. Being alone in the presence of God has produced many, if not most, of the best moments of my life. I hope the same has been true for you as well, and will always continue to be.