Secret Prayer
The following is extracted from the preface of a book entitled "Kneeling Christian", the author of which is unknown.
It none-the-less should cause us to examine our own attitude when praying to our God.
A traveller in China visited a temple on a great feast-day. Many were the worshippers of the idol enclosed in a sacred shrine.
The visitor noticed that most of the devotees brought with them small pieces of paper on which prayers had been written or printed. These they would wrap up in little balls of stiff mud and fling at the idol.
He enquired the reason for this strange proceeding, and was told that if the mud ball stuck fast to the idol, then the prayer would assuredly be answered; but if the mud fell off, the prayer was rejected by the god.
We may smile at this peculiar way of testing the acceptability of a prayer. But is it not a fact that the majority of Christian men and women who pray to a Living God know very little about real prevailing prayer? Yet prayer is the key that unlocks the door of God's treasure house.
It is not too much to say that all real growth in the spiritual life-all victory over temptation, all confidence and peace in the presence of difficulties and dangers, all repose of spirit in times of great disappointment or loss, all habitual communion with God-depend upon the practice of secret prayer.
You can read "Kneeling Christian"
care of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library