Matt. 6: 5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 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.
The Father who is in secret doesn’t just hear our prayers, He sees. He sees the secret things about us that we may not even be able to voice, that needs healing and transformation. As God, He is omnipresent, and is therefore everywhere, but as Father, He is especially present to our inner person from which all authentic life flows. If there is anything whole about us that can be seen on the surface, like an iceberg, it is just the tip of something much larger below the surface, in our inner being, that has been set free and made whole. If we are going to be conformed to the image of Christ in our outward behavior, then we must be transformed into the image of Christ in our inner being. As C.S. Lewis once said, it is always bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It’s in the Secret place, of intimacy and prayer, that the One who is in secret, and sees in secret, rewards us in the secret place of our true selves that He alone, knows fully, and so celebrates. Who we are behind our faces is His favorite place to dwell, rescue, and redeem. Prayer is not a duty, and it is far more than a discipline; it is an invitation into the liberating drama of encounter with the one whose presence can cause all mountains to melt like wax. Truly in Him we live, and move, and become.