For a person of faith, prayer is essential. I don’t think anyone would argue with that - I’m not making a groundbreaking statement here.
But knowing that prayer is important is not the same as knowing how to pray.
In the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gives some dos and don’ts.
Don’t make a show of your prayer, hoping that everyone sees you and admires how holy you are. If you pray like this, the reward will be the attention you receive… and nothing else. Don’t babble on, or ‘heap up empty phrases’, thinking that your many words will get you heard.
In verse 6, He lets us in on the right way to do it: '“But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
Upper Room
Now, many of us are familiar with the upper room. It’s a place of miracles. It’s where Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, where they shared the passover meal, where He instituted the Eucharist, where the Holy Spirit was poured out for the first time. It’s a place of revival, of powerful encounter.
It was a place where Jesus met with his closest and most trusted followers. An open air, social space with string lights and city views, perfect for a night cap and unwinding. Okay, now it sounds like I’m doing a write-up for a house on Zillow.
Perhaps the most noteworthy ‘upper room’ experience many of us have had was at a retreat or a conference, a moment of worship, a powerful talk… and maybe this ‘upper room’ experience was massively important in our faith journey.
In fact, my ‘scales falling off the eyes’ moment in my walk of faith happened in an upper room setting. It was 18 years ago on a retreat, where I experienced Eucharistic adoration for the first time. I didn’t fully understand it. I didn’t turn my life around in an instant. But it sparked in me a curiosity about who Jesus was. I walked out of the room that night in a daze. Some friends were going to do something fun and asked me to come with them, but I told them to go ahead without me and that I’d meet up with them later.
Inner Room
What I was experiencing, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was an invitation to my inner room. This, of course, is not a physical place. It’s a place deep within us. Where we are honest with ourselves, where we reflect, where our deepest joy and sadness exist together. It’s a place I had been before, but I never knew there was someone else there with me.
The daze I was in - wandering around staring at the night sky - was me realizing that I was not alone in my quiet, inner self. Jesus was inviting me to meet him there.
Over the years I’ve learned that the ‘upper room’ experiences, while they are beautiful, don’t necessarily sustain. Eventually, these glorious moments come to an end. The music stops playing, the talk ends, the retreat is over, we must go home.
This is where Jesus’ invitation is so crucial. He says to go to your inner room and pray. Your secret place - where the reward is simply that God meets you. Every time. Not always in the way you want or expect, but always in the way that you need.
In my experience, the cycle goes like this: Upper room experiences lead you to desire inner room intimacy and connection. Inner room connection prepares you to receive and appreciate the upper room experiences. And then those upper room experiences lead you back to the inner room. And so on.
My encouragement to you is to accept the invitation to ‘go to your inner room and pray’. Hear him. Listen. Speak to Him. Be honest. Listen some more. This is how relationships grow.
