Paul Stefan Ort

Secret Prayer and Worldly Difficulties

Thomas Brooks was not the only important Puritan, but his sayings remain particularly useful:

He who will attend closet prayer without distraction or disturbance, must not slip out of the world into his closet, but he must first slip into his closet before he be compassed about with a crowd of worldly employments. A good name is always better than a great name, and a name in heaven is infinitely better than a thousand names on earth; and the way to both of these is to be much with God in secret. As we are never out of the reach of God’s hand, so we are never out of the view of God’s eye.  When we are in the darkest place God hath windows in our breasts, and observes all the secret actings of our inner man.  “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord?” (The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Proverbs 15:3) God loves to see a poor Christian shut his closet door, and then open his bosom and pour out his soul before him. — Thomas Brooks