The Listening Heart Is A Teachable Heart
When it comes to building relationships, it will always involve an investment of self to one degree or another. It doesn’t matter what the relationship is (e.g.: friendship, marriage, dating, teacher, student, co-worker, employee, employer, etc.) well, you get it! The other person of your relationship with you, no matter their role is validated by you, and you by them. Relationships have value if you have or will invest in it. Some relationships have more value or less value depending on how much of yourself you give to it.
We have an opportunity to build a relationship with our Savior, Teacher, Lord, and our Friend. He has given us an invitation that we need to accept or reject. He extends this invitation to those who have an identity with Him, the One speaking. In Matthew 6:6 and Isaiah 26:20, the tones with which He invites us are thoughtful, warm, and welcoming. For Him to say, “Come,” tells us to join Him where He is - He will be there. It is not meant for us to be without Him. This invitation does not expire and it is reassuring to know that He will meet us because we matter to Him. He cares for us. He relates to us when we go to Him, and the longer we linger with Him, the more we know Him. This is a relationship with us that He puts a higher value on than we do many times.
He tells us where to meet with Him whenever we do, “into our rooms”. He has chosen a place that is familiar and comfortable to us. We feel safe and at home there. It is easy for us to let down our guard in our rooms. We remove our masks and put pretensions aside in the privacy of our rooms. We can be ourselves with Him there.
We are to “close our doors behind us”. We can now enter into a deep, private, and honest conversation without distractions. This is a gift of uninterrupted and focused time together - set apart. The door separates us from the rest of our home and the rest of the world. It is not open to those who are casual acquaintances. Safe and secluded, He gives us His attention and we are able to give Him ours.
In this secret place and time of our meeting, He has invited us into His protection from a world that at times seems to have gone crazy and is deserving of His Father’s judgement and wrath. He has been considerate in planning our meeting at a place of comfort and security that will guide our conversation with Him. There, we trust Him in confidence.
All of this is wrapped into Jesus’ teaching His disciples how to pray. He begins by assuming that we do come to Him and pray. He knows how faithful we are in coming to Him. After all, we say we are His disciples - students of His. He teaches us how not to pray, where not to pray, and why not to pray. He reveals that the reward is given from our Father when we follow His pattern.
He also tells us how, where, and why to pray. He is very thorough, detailed, and direct for our benefit including who we are to address our prayer to and why we should. In that, the character and dependability of our loving Father is established. We come to Jesus to be taught by Him, and to pray with Him. When we listen to Him, we honor Him as Teacher and obey it because we have ascribed to His values, and acknowledged that He knows best when we meet with Him and He with us.
The Lord’s prayer is our pattern on how to pray, but so much more!
How about you, have you met with Him in prayer lately?
Have you used His pattern when you do?
Have you thought in depth about this prayer?
You may want to read Matthew 6:5-9 and Is. 26:20 for further consideration.