is is how the Master teaches us to pray:
He brings us into the Father's living presence. What we pray
there must avail. Let us listen carefully to hear what the Lord
has to say to us.

First, '_Pray to thy Father which is in secret_.' God is a God
who hides Himself to the carnal eye. As long as in our worship of
God we are chiefly occupied with our own thoughts and exercises,
we shall not meet Him who is a Spirit, the unseen One. But to the
man who withdraws himself from all that is of the world and man,
and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Father will reveal
Himself. As he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and
the life of the world, and surrenders himself to be led of Christ
into the secret of God's presence, the light of the Father's love
will rise upon him. The secrecy of the inner chamber and the
closed door, the entire separation from all around us, is an
image of, and so a help to, that inner spiritual sanctuary, the
secret of God's tabernacle, within the veil, where our spirit
truly comes into contact with the Invisible One. And so we are
taught, at the very outset of our search after the secret of
effectual prayer, to remember that it is in the inner chamber,
where we are alone with the Father, that we shall learn to pray
aright. The Father is in secret: in these words Jesus teaches us
where He is waiting us, where He is always to be found.
Christians often complain that private prayer is not what it
should be. They feel weak and sinful, the heart is cold and dark;
it is as if they have so little to pray, and in that little no
faith or joy. They are discouraged and kept from prayer by the
thought that they cannot come to the Father as they ought or as
they wish. Child of God! listen to your Teacher. He tells you
that when you go to private prayer your first thought must be:
The Father is in secret, the Father waits me there. Just because
your heart is cold and prayerless, get you into the presence of
the loving Father. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth you. Do not be thinking of how little you have to bring
God, but of how much He wants to give you. Just place yourself
before, and look up into, His face; think of His love, His
wonderful, tender, pitying love. Just tell Him how sinful and
cold and dark all is: it is the Father's loving heart will give
light and warmth to yours. O do what Jesus says: Just shut the
door, and pray to thy Father, which is in secret. Is it not