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Pause for Thought: 18 March
Prayer Door
‘But 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’ (Matthew 6:6).
Besides the intermittent gated entrances to homes and apartment buildings in Tokyo occasionally there is a metre-high door in a wall – possibly for parcels, but in fact it is a ‘humility door’ through which the seemingly less significant workers employed in service could enter unobtrusively. Anyone would have to bow to get through the tradesmen’s entrance. Similarly, for a special tea ceremony hosts lead guests into the teahouse through a metre-high sliding door. All who enter must bow. The door points to the egalitarian nature of tea irrespective of status. The last guest in latches the door.
Does my heart have a humility door or postern gate as I approach the Lord’s throne room in prayer? Jesus told us to pray privately and God would see and reward such prayer. In Revelation 4:1 John wrote about his invitation to see the throne room of Heaven – a privileged glimpse. Paul tells us that Jesus is there interceding for us (Romans 8:34).
In the castle of my soul
Is a little postern gate,
Whereat, when I enter,
I am in the presence of God,
In a moment, in the turning of a thought,
I am where God is.
This is a fact.
When I enter into God,
All life has a meaning,
Without asking I know;
My desires are even now fulfilled,
My fever is gone
In the quiet of God.
My troubles are but pebbles on the road,
My joys are like the everlasting hills.
So it is when I step through the gate of prayer
From time into eternity.
Walter Rauschenbusch (American theologian and Baptist minister among the poor in New York. He lived 1861-1918.)
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