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Secrecy
Brian Mashburn
October 12, 2008
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The Secrecy of Prayer
"Can I talk to you in private?" my son requested.
Now, I've never had any of my kids request this before. Of course he could, and I told him so as I promptly moved from my chair, going with him to a secret place.
Of course, I was very interested in what he felt was so important as to require private audience with me. But there was something else going on inside of me as I walked together with my son to be alone.
It had to do with just that - the two of us being alone. More specifically, the being invited by my son into something private was... special. He was inviting me into something very real, personal, and vulnerable for him.
And as you know, it is only in the very real, personal, and vulnerable places that anyone can grow in closeness.
He wasn't asking to do this for anyone else. He wasn't trying to show off his relationship with his dad to others, trying to "do his duty" in our relationship, or score points with me. Nor was he suffering through yet another conversation with me that I initiated because he needed to be disciplined, or taught, or guided. No. He wanted personal, secret time with Dad.
In one of Jesus' first teachings on prayer to his disciples, he instructed them, too, to make a secret space in which to invite their Father (Mt 6:6). It's not about their words, it's not about being dutiful, or noticed as pious. It's about the personal reward of secret intimacy with their Dad.
So Shade asked me a really neat question in the privacy of the personal space he created for the two of us. But what he asked me and trusted me with was not my greatest reward, nor his, even if he doesn't realize it. It was the personal reward of our growing oneness.
I'd tell you what he asked, but it's a secret.