Defending the Prayer Closet

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” – The Christ

I’m just going to share what has worked for me. So, this may not be helpful at all. It may be very helpful to some, or moderately helpful to others. I hope you can extract something out of it, as our daily Scripture reading and prayers (or sacrifices as I like to call them) are really foundational to our worship of God, our sanctification, our communion with Him.

Some may push back and say, “Well, most Christians have not had the Scriptures to read for themselves.” Meaning it’s a relatively new thing for most Christians to have a Bible to read for themselves, so it can’t be that important. It is true that many Christians prior to the modern era have not had easy direct access to Scripture, or were even literate. But I would simply reply that we are not living in those times any more. We are living in age where we have been blessed with literacy and easy access to the Scriptures. And with this blessing comes more responsibility, and therefore greater judgment if we neglect to make the most of the talents given to us. The Christian in the 3rd century who had to rely more heavily on his literate pastor will be judged in accordance with his abilities and the limited knowledge he had access to, just as we will be judged in accordance with our abilities and the abundance of knowledge we have access to. More could be said about all this, but I simply want to bring it up and say that the lack of a printing press, or the internet, in most of Church history is no reason to neglect reading Scripture now. Rather, it reinforces our reason to read Scripture.

Furthermore, if one loves their Creator they will want to know Him more. They will delight in His law as the Psalmist says. They will want to read about His actions and manifestation in history. And that will manifest in wanting to ingest His word. To eat His word. Jesus says that man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. On the other end of the spectrum, an error evangelicals can fall into is to drift into thinking that simply reading the word is feeding on the word. This is not the case. The Pharisees read the Scriptures all the time, and often did so without letting it transform their hearts, cultivate humility, and lead them to Christ. So, one needs to read the word with the intention of obeying it from your heart, letting it mold you into the image of Christ, implementing it into your life daily. We need to be daily converts. We need to be not merely readers of the word, but doers of the word.

Lastly, we live in an age of liturgical revival. This, like wine, is good, but can be a dangerous and intoxicating thing. Many evangelicals, myself included, are rediscovering our Christian roots and the richness of our worshiping past. Our own church, Saint Athanasius, looks very Lutheran or Anglican, with the addition of some charismatic elements. But one thing I have noticed in these more liturgically minded circles is that prayer closet devotion can take a less significant role in the life of the Christian. For example, really hardcore Anglican communities will attempt to re-institute the old intended practices for the Book of Common Prayer. That is, you actually go to church in the morning and the evening and pray together with other Christians in a highly regimented fashion. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but I think the evangelical devotional life is a better way.

There is a lot of goodness and strength in what evangelicals sometimes call “quiet time.” We should not get rid of this. We should guard it zealously. God often speaks in the silence and solitude of the prayer closet. And this form of prayer is simply carrying on the tradition of the puritans, the desert monks, and ultimately the Christ, who would often retreat into solitude to pray. We do see Him in synagogue and at Temple, but we see Him perhaps even more in solitary prayer. This is where He sought out God the Father. Where He would be filled up with, re-energized, directed, so that He could return to the crowds in order to minister.

The prayer closet has been the place where God has spoken to me most. It is where I have learned from His word the most. This does not mean sermons are unimportant. Or the Eucharistic celebration is unimportant. Or singing hymns and praying together with the rest of the body is unimportant. These things are highly important. We are commanded to do them and God does meet with us in those places. But in my life, God has met me in the prayer closet more than anywhere else. And I think history and Scripture attest to its edification.

Scripture

“Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:17)

If you have no private devotional life, the first thing I would say to you is just to read the Bible. Pick it up, open it, and read. Tolle lege! My father raised me and my siblings with this emphasis. Read the Scriptures, obey them. He modeled this in his own life, and led us in family worship which always included reading Scriptures and discussing them. If you read only one chapter a day, you will make it through the entire Bible in less than three years. That’s more than most people read in their entire life. This is what I did the first time I read it from cover to cover.

Maybe you don’t understand everything in it. That’s okay. Nobody understands everything in it. There is always mystery to search out, and its glory of kings to search those mysteries out. However, there will be things you will immediately understand. This, I believe, is a grace from God. It’s almost as if we would be crushed if we were able to comprehend everything at once. I think Mark Twain said somewhere that it wasn’t the things that he didn’t understand in Scripture that bothered him, but the things that he did understand. You will understand some things immediately. Over time you will begin to understand other things. The things you do understand will be enough to occupy your mind and body in contemplation and implementation.

I remember when I first started reading Scripture with intentionality. Some verses in Ephesians that really jumped out to me were not to be drunk with wine, but to be drunk with the Holy Spirit. And not to let any unwholesome word come out of my mouth, but only that which is edifying for the hearer. These I understood and could practically implement in my life.

On the other hand, when I read Romans, I had a very hard time understanding what Paul was talking about when it came to our relationship to the law and all that entails. I understood with bracing clarity what he said in chapter 10, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you will be saved. This I understood. This stirred my heart. But the law, and our justification, and our election, and Israel, and how all those things worked together was very difficult to me to comprehend. Many of these issues are still debated among theologians. Even Peter said that Paul wrote about some things which were hard to understand. Romans was and is difficult in places to understand.

But I have grown in understanding in this book and others through disciplined, concentrated reading, seeking illumination through the Holy Spirit, and reading pastors and theologians. The Holy Spirit is our Teacher, the Scriptures say. Of course, the Church has also been given human teachers, men filled with the Spirit, to assist us in our understanding. They are not infallible, but good teachers can be very helpful. The catholic minded Christian can err by relying too heavily on human teachers and fall into thinking too highly of our fathers in the faith. They were men just like us. Given the same Spirit as us. The evangelical or pentecostal Christian can err by relying too much on their individual experience. Some Lutheran theologian once said our worship is always communal, but it always must first be individual. It isn’t one or the other. It’s both. Small c catholic Christians need to spend more time in the prayer closet, and need to temper their fascination with our fathers. This becomes obvious when they start drooling over simple statement by John Calvin or John Chrysostom that could have just as easily been said by their local pastor, or realized on their own if they just spent time in Scripture and praying for illumination. But they think there is some kind of extra-ordinary wisdom found there. I think this reveals their immaturity in some ways. The evangelical or pentecostal error becomes obvious when they are entirely dismissive of our history and our forefathers in the faith, and think too highly of their own opinions. We want to be both catholic and evangelical in these things without falling into over reliance one way or the other, and this is prevented by relying on the Spirit and rooting oneself thoroughly in the Word.

When you root yourself in the Word and allow the Holy Spirit to be your teacher you are better able to judge the prophets among us now. When Paul is ordering the worship at Corinth, he says, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.” Paul says, “He who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.” Well, who does that now. Preachers. The Puritans believed preaching was a form of prophecy. I think this is true. Your pastor is prophesying to you when he preaches. He is speaking edification, exhortation, and comfort to the people as he draws out the truths of Scripture. But if you are not immersed in the Scriptures and the Spirit yourself, you will not be as equipped to judge when a prophet speaks. Paul commands us to judge. Jesus commands us to judge with right judgment. Right judgment flows out of a Scripturally informed, Spiritually filled Christian.

When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is read three chapters of Scripture. Most of the time, I do this still in my bed. It’s just the very first thing I do. On Sunday, I read five chapters. If I consistently do this, I will have read the entire Bible in a year. And that’s my goal. I just start in Genesis and work my through to Revelation. In reality I make it through the whole Bible on average in about 15 months. Sometimes, I just skip days for whatever reason. So, I need to work on consistency. Some years are better than others. That’s okay. I don’t beat myself up for missing a day. And I don’t work to catch up when I miss days. I just start where I left off and read the normal amount of chapters.

Sacramentals

After reading the Scriptures, I usually get ready for the day. Shower, dress, brush teeth, etc. I think about what I just read while doing this. Then once I’m finished, I enter into prayer. I usually light a candle, face east, get on my knees, cross myself, bow my head, place my hands in the orans position, and pray the Lord’s prayer. Some of these things seem silly to some evangelicals. That’s okay. Nobody is more holy or less holy for doing them or not doing them. They are simply things I have incorporated, for various reasons, into my personal prayer life. Something comparable in the Protestant realm would be closing your eyes to pray. Nothing in Scripture about this, but it’s useful in pushing out distractions. Or in reformed churches like the Protestant Reformed Churches and many traditional Anglican churches, they will use early modern English to pray to God. King James English. Lots of thees, thous, etc. I never do this. It always seems pretentious and fake to me. But I have no doubt some men employ it with absolute sincerity and reverence. It facilitates them in their worship and prayers and that’s great. What I have mentioned above are similar in function.

Some of these things are called sacramentals. They aren’t considered sacraments proper, like the two dominical sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. They are sacramentals. Earthy, ceremonious things done to help us focus our thoughts on the Lord. Here’s a few thoughts about these sacramentals.

Lighting candles reminds us of the fire of the Holy Spirit and that Jesus is the light of the world, and that we are to be a light to the nations. The lamp stand in the tabernacle and temple is basically a candle used in the worship of God. Christians have used candles for practical purposes in the ancient Church and, as with most of these things, eventually acquired symbolic significance. When I put them out after I’m finished it acts as incense which is associated with our prayers that ascend to God. In Revelation incense is the prayers of the saints in Revelation 5. And in Revelation 8, it is mixed with the prayers of the saints on the altar before the throne of God. Of course incense was used in the Old Covenant worship, but it’s still used in the New Covenant worship happening in heaven right now if we are to believe John’s Apocalypse.

Facing East is a long tradition in the Church. Jesus describes His return like lightning striking from East to West. So, we face East as way of waiting on the Lord to return, and as way of bodily positioning ourselves toward Him. The Sun also rises in the East, and the Bible speaks of Jesus as the Sun of Righteousness. The Church has traditionally constructed her churches so that the congregation faces East toward God. So, these are some of the biblical and historical reasons behind this. When Jesus teaches us to pray, he tells us to pray in the privacy of our prayer closets, but to pray in the plural, our. Prayer is a communal act even when we are alone, we are with the communion of the saints. By facing East I am intentionally cultivating a mindset that I am praying as our fathers in the faith prayed.

C. S. Lewis talks somewhere about the importance of bodily posture, perhaps in reference to prayer. He says we are like amphibians. Half body and half spirit. And whatever one does affects the other. So, when I kneel I am demonstrating reverence and submission to God. When I cross myself I am using my body to remind myself that I have God’s name placed on me. That I am marked out as His. That I am not my own. I am also participating in ancient tradition that our fathers practiced in their prayers. It is like a non-verbal prayer. A bodily communication to God. Similar to a husband who kisses his wife. He is signifying with his body affection toward his wife. When I place my hands in the orans position, I am bodily signifying my openness to hear and receive from God just as I am offering and giving to God.

I pray the Lord’s prayer simply because Jesus taught us to pray it. Perhaps he didn’t mean for us to repeat it verbatim, but it’s okay if we do, and traditionally Christians have prayed it verbatim. The fear of evangelicals is that if a prayer is written out beforehand or repeated daily from memory, it becomes rote and meaningless. I suppose this is possible. Just as it is possible for extemporaneous prayers to become rote and meaningless. But it’s been my experience that praying this prayer daily has caused me to appreciate it more fully, to understand it more fully. And since it becomes ingrained in me, I use it to structure my extemporaneous prayers, too. The basic structure being an invocation of God which includes His attributes. Followed by petitions. And closed with a doxology.

Spirit

After praying the Lord’s prayer while on my knees I then begin to pray in the Spirit, with my spirit, in ecstatic tongues. Paul encourages Christians to speak in tongues, and says it is edifying to do so. At this point I bow down more fully. Still on my knees, but my head is now touching the floor or resting on top of clasped hands which are on the floor. I pray in tongues and try to pay attention to what the Spirit is saying while giving special attention to the words of Scripture I just read. Sometimes while I am reading Scripture, I will be overwhelmed with something from the text and I will pray concerning whatever it is right then and there. But usually I wait until this moment. I keep these thoughts in my heart like kindling for a fire. Then I pray in the Spirit in tongues, which ignites those thoughts into interpreted words. I then switch to praying with my mind, as the Apostle says in his discussion of tongues. I will pray with my spirit and will pray with my mind. I then bring the structure of the Lord’s prayer onto the thoughts informed by the Scriptures I read, together with the fire of the Spirit, and offer them up as rational prayers articulated through my mind by my earthly language. I view this as type of ascension offering to the Lord.

Doers of the Word, Not Merely Hearers

I want to be mindful of my life always, so that my prayers won’t be hindered. I don’t want to turn a deaf ear to the law, but to have my ear always open to hearing and obeying the law, so the Lord will not turn a deaf ear to my petitions. And when I pray I ask God to receive my prayers and to give me grace to live a holy life.

Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

I usually end my morning prayer, by standing and singing or chanting two Psalms. Sometimes I will sing a Psalm then an ancient hymn like the Te Deum. This ends my morning prayer, where God sends me out into the world to be His ambassador.

Extemporaneous and Scripted

Much more could be said about all these things, but I wanted to provide practical encouragement to those looking to begin or enhance their daily prayers and Scripture reading. In short, just read the Bible and let what you just read inform and guide your prayers. There is nothing wrong with praying prayers from books like The Valley of Vision or The Book of Common Prayer. Those prayers can be very helpful, but I also think you should be able to talk to your God without a script in the same way you can talk to your wife without a script and tell her how much you love her. Or talk to your doctor without a script and tell him what’s wrong with you. Or talk to your boss without a script and let him know what needs to be fixed at your work. We should be able to extemporaneously speak to God from the heart. Written, purposefully crafted, prayers can be very helpful guides to that end. You can write out prayers from your heart. I do this on Sunday morning with the collect after the call to worship. If you prefer written prayers, I would encourage you to write your own.

Prayer Length

I try to make my baseline morning prayers and Scripture reading. I sometimes pray midday. And then again briefly before bed. Sometimes I’ll pray while I go on a walk. Sometimes I’ll dedicate a longer period of time to prayer, like an hour. The Lord’s prayer is brief. And so most of my prayers in the morning, at midday, and in the evening are brief. They are usually 1 minute to 5 minutes long. But Jesus also asked His disciples to stay awake with him and pray for an hour one time. So, I try to do longer sessions on occasion as well.

Conclusion

This is my three-streams approach to prayer closet spirituality. It combines the strengths of our catholic, evangelical, and pentecostal heritage. But the most important aspects are simply reading the Word and praying from the heart.