After a powerful Sunday service where a lot of people went forward for prayer, this devotional landed on a passage worth sitting with — the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus teaches on prayer.
"When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." — Matthew 6:6
Verse five sets up the context — Jesus warns against praying like the hypocrites, who loved to pray standing in the synagogues and on street corners to be seen by others. Their reward was already received in full: the admiration of the people watching. Verse six is the correction — go into your room, close the door, and pray to the Father in secret.
What This Verse Isn't Saying
It would be easy to read verse six and conclude that real prayer only counts when you're alone in a quiet room — that letting anyone see you pray misses the point. That's not what Christ is getting at. He's addressing the Pharisees and religious leaders of the time, who made a spectacle of their prayers: look how eloquent I am, look how faithfully I show up at the same time every day. Their reward was the crowd's admiration. Ours shouldn't be.
Group prayer isn't wrong. Crowds responding to an altar call aren't insincere just because they're public. The warning isn't against being seen — it's against praying for being seen.
The Intentionality of a Quiet Room
Still, there's something important about the private, undistracted kind of prayer Jesus describes here — going into a room, closing the door, being alone with the Father. It shows the intentionality of the heart in a way that's hard to fake.
That's a real, ongoing struggle — praying often with my wife, which is good for our marriage and our home, but realizing there's far less time spent alone, just me and the Father, in an actual quiet room with the door closed. Prayer happens in the car plenty. But there's a difference between that and deliberately setting aside time and space for nothing else.
Prayer Without Ceasing — and Prayer With Intention
Two things can both be true. First: honest prayer isn't confined to a locked, quiet room. God hears us all the time, everywhere — in the car, in the grocery store, in a meeting. Scripture is full of what could be called micro-prayers, quick words lifted up in the middle of ordinary moments. We're called to pray without ceasing.
Second: there's still real value in the closet — in setting apart time with no distractions, no agenda but the Father. It's not about frequency or a formula (that's between each person and God, not something to get legalistic about). Notice the verse doesn't say "if you pray" — it says "when you pray." Prayer is assumed as part of who we are as children of God. Life gets busy, and busyness can quietly mask genuineness if we're not careful.
The War Room
There's a scene in the movie War Room where a woman clears out a cluttered closet — donates the extra stuff, the overflow, the things that don't matter — and turns it into a dedicated space to pray for the restoration of her marriage and others. Sticky notes with prayers and promises cover the walls. It's a picture of exactly this: making room, literally and otherwise, to be still with God.
Being still requires clearing distractions out of the way — not just physically, but in our minds. Prayer isn't only us talking; it's also an opportunity for God to speak back, if we're willing to be quiet and listen for that still, small voice.
So pray in the car with your eyes open. Pray with your spouse. And pray alone, with the door closed, more than we probably do. All of it counts. God knows the heart behind each one.
You can catch this devotional and every weekday message live on carltondewaynedunko.com, Monday through Thursday at 9:15 AM Eastern. Carlton also co-hosts the original 9:15 Devotional, where you'll find the full video archive and more ways to connect.