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Oswald Chambers is one of my favorite authors.

He makes me think.
His words convict me.
I want to pray after reading what he writes.
He makes me want to be a better Christian.

His book My Utmost for His Highest is my favorite. My little leather bound copy is well worn. I’ve used it for many years. At some point I began jotting down important things that happened on the date I was reading. It’s become sort of a journal too.

Today’s entry (August 23) is on prayer.

He excels in making me want to pray more often and better.
I feel him urge me on to spend time with the Lord.
He convicts me of my often prayer-less days.

This excerpt is what really grabbed hold of my heart today:

“We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time.

He goes on to say:

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.”

“When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”—Matthew 6:6