The Secret Place ?

"But you, when you want to pray, go into your most secluded room, lock your door and address your prayer to your Father who is there in the secret place. And your Father, who sees in that secret place, will repay you." Matthew 6 : 6

We spend a lot of time on the Internet, whether it is for work or study, to relax or to keep in touch with others. We develop our networks!

As Christians, we can go on Youtube or Tik Tok to watch videos, listen to testimonies, praise and receive encouragement. It's all available to us, and that's good.

But sometimes, in the midst of all our activities, we forget that the most important thing is not to look at things about Him, or to talk to others about Him. We forget that the most important thing is to talk to Him.

He, God, the one you can meet in the secret place.

When you pray, close off the place where you are, isolate yourself from the outside world. Come and meet him!

It's not a question of fulfilling a religious duty, just come to be with him.

You may have heard, “you need to pray”, “you need to read the Bible”, you may well recognize that you need to, but it's not about getting good points.

You're not a bad person because you don't read the Bible, or don't read it enough. But you're not going to understand who God is if you don't read about him.

If we don't read the Bible, we won't know what mistakes people have made and how they got out of them. By reading it, we can avoid making the same mistakes by relying on their good or bad examples. Our faith will also increase when reading about all He is able to do.

We will no longer allow ourselves to be accused in our conscience. On the contrary, we will learn to distinguish the voice of God from other voices, even our own voice.

Praying is talking to God.

And we can go even further, towards that which is most beautiful and most precious : becoming God's friend.

And that's what God wants most. That we spend time with him, for him, just the two of us, like a friend.

Spending time with God is not, as we sometimes imagine, repeating the same requests over and over again.

On the contrary, it's about putting aside anything that might be a need, and coming to him to be in his presence.

Like when you want to see your best friend and tell him everything.

All the great things you've done, the good times, the wonderful weekend you've had. When you're so happy and you want to share it. And that makes him happy.

Telling him about your difficulties too, what's hard, your tears, your questions, your doubts sometimes.

Confiding in him the worst of yourself, seeking his help. Because, like a best friend, He keeps everything you confide in him in the secret of your meetings.

God wants a relationship with us, and everything else flows from that. When you develop that relationship with him, your faith grows because you know he's on your side. You know he hears you.

God would like us all to come to fully experience what Jesus said in the book of John in the Bible when Lazarus died and there was no more hope.

“Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but I spoke because of the crowd around me, so that they would believe that you sent me. And when he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarre, COME OUT!” And the dead man went out covered with bandages, his face wrapped in a cloth.”

Jesus knew this secret place, and all his authority depended on his father and flowed from their relationship. He knew that his father would hear him.

It's sometimes harder for us - after all, we're not Jesus! Yet the more time we spend with him, the more he reveals His will to us, and the more he can guide us to do things according to his will.

About fifteen years ago, God spoke to me in a dream and said:

“When are you going to spend time with me and get to know my love?”

I was already very active for God, I served him with all my heart, I prayed too, sometimes for a long time.

God wanted something else, he wanted these moments of intimacy, just the two of us, without me asking anything of him except to reveal himself to me, to reveal his heart to me.

Deciding to stop what we're doing to spend this hidden moment with him.

Time no longer passes in the same way, time flies in these moments of intimacy.

When we live this relationship with him, we're no longer alone. We may be misunderstood by the people around us, but we no longer feel alone, because God understands and loves us. He's on our side, sympathizing with our weaknesses.

Faced with this wave of despair, when suicide seems the only way out because we feel alone, despite the networks that are constantly present; When we no longer understand the meaning of what we're going through or when we've been through so much; We can come into God's presence, He's there.

If we weep before him, he gathers up our tears, as the Psalmist says:

“You keep account of every step of my wandering life, and even my tears you keep in your wineskin. Their account is written in your book.”

Jesus would go off on his own to spend time with his heavenly father; And he would do what his father showed him.

That's what it means to be a disciple of Jesus : an intimate, transparent relationship. A friendship.

And the more you get to know him, the less you want to pull away from him. On the contrary, you become fond of him, you don't want to do without this time with him, in this secret place.

Everything else flows from there.