I’m a huge advocate of corporate worship and communal Christianity. My personal MO is shaped by the fact that salvation is for a people through a people. I make it a habit of pointing out that too often in contemporary mainstream Christianity we make our faith all about the individual. Granted, I advocate this perspective bearing in mind that salvation does indeed take place on a very individual level as each person’s salvation is determined by the state of their personal relationship with Jesus. I don’t emphasize this part as much, however, because I believe that we have quite a good grip on this bit thanks to the Protestant Reformation. In other words, I’m trying to get the pendulum to swing in another direction to balance our thinking about salvation. Yes, it is individual, but it is also very, very collective and communal.
Agains this backdrop, let me say that the importance of private prayer cannot be quantified. Yes, we must pray together as the collective people of God, but this does not cancel the need to also pray in private. After all, Jesus commands it (as well as warns against the dangers of public prayer) and that is argument enough (Matt 6:6). But why does Jesus command it?
Something unique happens in private. When we are in private we tend to be in our most vulnerable state. We all know that there are our Sunday selves and our private selves. For some of us, there may be very little variation between these two, but for others, the variation may be rather dramatic (and this may have more to do with personality type than dysfunction, by the way).
When we get alone, our guard drops. The masks come off in private. When there are no other eyes watching, we are raw. This is precisely why we must pray in private. God wants access to our raw selves. He wants to cut through the layers of armor that protect our hidden selves from a harsh and judgmental human world. God, in his great mercy and love, wishes not to judge, but to heal. Judgment has been passed and Jesus took on the penalty for our sins. Now is the time for healing to begin.
The voluntary death of Jesus testifies to the world that God can be trusted, and the weight of his love towards us far outweighs the weight of his wrath and judgment (Rom 5:6ff) . This means that he wishes not to harm us, but to heal us and to bring wholeness to our raw selves.
Furthermore, there are often times a layer of brokenness that reaches beyond our human consciousness and cognition. There are problems and dysfunction deep within that work on us, that rub us, that prevent profound peace and joy from entering in that only the Holy Spirit can identify and deal with. Being alone with God is the key to responding to this need.
Is your desire for the Holy Spirit to go deeper? Is your desire for the love of God to become real on dimensions in your life that are so profound that they are incomprehensible?
Get alone with God.
