Prayer Choice and Prayer Conflict

I am just beginning to learn how to pray. Of course, I have been learning for a very long time. Perhaps I should say I am just beginning to progress.

Oswald uses two opposite images involving a door to describe what is necessary in prayer:

Open wide the door. Let God in. Yesterday we had a prayer service at church. One of the Taize hymns we sang went like this: "O God, we call. O God, we call. From deep inside we yearn. From deep inside we yearn. From deep inside we yearn for you." We sang those words about ten times. The worship leader explained that the repetition in Taize hymns allows the words to penetrate. I experienced that. I realized how deeply I am yearning for God. It doesn't always manifest itself as obvious longing. Lately, it looks like anger or apathy or hopelessness, but beneath all that is groaning for God to make sense of things, to envelop me at the core of who I am, and give me rest.

Slam the door shut. On all the flies buzzing about my head demanding my attention. Some of the buzzing is duty, work, the jobs I should be doing. Some of the buzzing is the world -- the enticing pleasures by which I am so easily satisfied. Some of the buzzing is doubt.

I want to believe that Oswald writes the truth: "When we live in the secret place, it becomes impossible for us to doubt God, we become more sure of him than of anything else."

Now I just need to find the secret place.