When "life" gets in the way...

After my Sweet Hubby and our youngest son, Matthew, left this morning to attend "Man Camp" at our church, I settled into our sunny living room for my quiet time with the Lord. I treasure this time every day! It's usually so still that all I hear is the ticking of the clock and the sound of my own breathing. That silence is a double edged sword! Most days it allows me to fully focus on God's Word and my time with Him. Other days...well...let's just say that my mind becomes a playground of thoughts!

When I turned to today's reading in my devotional "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers I was excited to see this very subject addressed - and quite nicely!

"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." Matthew 6:6

"Jesus did not say, "Dream about your Father who is in the secret place," but He said, "...pray to your Father who is in the secret place..." Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.

We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, "This needs to be done, and I have to do that today." Jesus says to "shut your door." Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him."

I love that he used the word "willful!" Webster's defines it as something done "deliberately, intentionally." It can have a negative connotation - "a willful child." (Like us in our relationship with the Lord!!)

As Christians, we know that the enemy loves nothing more than to come between us and our Heavenly Father. We struggle on a daily basis...Oh what a victory for Satan to disrupt our prayer life!

I'm getting better at catching myself wandering before I'm too far off course! And I've learned to start my quiet time with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to be with me and keep me present with the Lord. It helps. How do you keep yourself in "your inner room with the door closed" as Jesus said?