Secret Place with the Most High

I’m currently in the midst of reading a condensed book of works written by, Andrew Murray.  Neither the book’s comparative old age nor the death of Murray in the early 1900s makes me doubt that the Holy Spirit wrote through him.

Last night I was reading about prayer and worship.  Scripture says that true worship is by spirit and truth.  Scripture also says that after Christ died for us, we no longer needed to go to a temple to be in the presence of God, our Father, which means we don’t have to go to a physical building to worship God today.

Instead, as Jesus told us, we only have to go to a secret place to pray to God which, I believe, is the same as worshipping Him.  Everybody’s secret place, whether it be in the quiet of one’s own mind, in a closet, or in a spare bedroom, is unique to each individual, but every secret space allows its occupant to be alone and prevents the person from being bothered while praying.

Even if your secret place is your bathtub, it is still the place where you will face God.  You won’t actually see Him standing before you, but you will encounter His presence wherever it is you choose to worship Him.

Last night was not the first time I encountered this material about secret places – I had read about this in scripture before.  But last night was the first time I reread it in a long while and I am amazed by how much more insight, how much more meaning I got out of the same words I’d read on many previous occasions.

I went to my personal secret place this morning, the place that only God and I know about.  And my attitude about today, this very day, changed during my time with Christ.  I normally talk to God throughout any given day, but I have never started a day in my secret place before…I’ve just never been a morning person, you see.

Well, as I said, I put God first today and talked with Him for about 45 minutes at the very beginning of my morning.  And all I can tell you is that my morning, my day, my attitude…everything is just plain different, just plain brighter as a result.  I know and am grateful that I have been blessed today simply because I put God first this morning by visiting with Him in our shared secret place.

Why don’t you go to your secret place when you get out of bed tomorrow morning?  I can tell you from my own wondrous personal experience with God, you will not regret it.

One night in the house

Even though I completed training back in December of last year, I was still nervous as I began my first stay at my community’s homeless house last night.  I was afraid that I would do something wrong or, worse, offend someone residing in Hope House.

Despite my best efforts to hide my fear, my nervousness must have been obvious because one of the first residents I encountered took one look at me and said, “You look scared to death!”  I explained that, well, in essence she was right.  I told her it was my first stay at Hope House and I was worried about doing something, anything, and everything wrong.  She chuckled and assured me that all of Hope House’s residents were fine and very laid back and relaxed.

It didn’t take me long to realize how accurate my new friend was with her description of the people I met throughout the night.  I spent most of the night in the company of a 4-year-old girl.  In her role as a doctor, my little friend had a busy round of appointments with others staying at Hope House.  After she completed her last physical exam, the girl curled up beside me on the couch while we adults watched some television in the living room.

I couldn’t concentrate on the television program, however.  I spent my time wondering if this type of gathering, this type of family gathering, was what the residents of Hope House longed for.  I wanted to ask the people around me if they wanted family that wanted to be family…family that would love, accept, and support them no matter what.

And then I realized that’s just what they had right there in the living room I was sitting in, in the house where I was going to spend the night.  I realized that it would not be easy for someone to leave Hope House because of the love that exists between its walls, between its residents.  Love is missing in the lives of so many people, but not in those lived by the residents of Hope House.

As the night continued, I began to feel even more at home.  I said goodnight to the house’s “doctor” before she was put to bed.  I spent quite a bit of time talking with my co-volunteer, a kind older man I had just met.  He told me about the various mission trips he’d gone on in the past and I, in turn, shared the details of my upcoming mission trip to Russia.

I was exhausted after our conversation so I headed off to get some sleep in the volunteers’ bedroom located on one of Hope House’s upper floors.  The room wasn’t fancy, but it was a comfortable place for me to lay my head for the night.  Before putting my head down on the pillow, though, I prayed.  I prayed for each and every person in Hope House.  I prayed for the lives that had been so disrupted at some point that it caused these people to be here, in Hope House, in the last place in our community they probably ever thought they’d be.

I don’t know why, but I was surprised that all of these people had welcomed me so warmly into Hope House…into what is currently their shared home, the home they shared with me, another stranger in their lives. 

I will never forget my first night at Hope House.  In fact, I’m already looking forward to my second stay there.  Investing in the lives of other people gives a reward that can’t be measured by interest rates or any other type of yardstick.  It’s simply something I’ve always longed to do and will continue to do long into the future because there is no greater immeasurable reward.