Many of us know a lot about prayer – its importance, the ‘right’ language and posture, the dos and don’ts – yet still find the practice itself strangely elusive and difficult.

Jesus’ beautiful words in Matthew 6:5-8 offer gentle but profound guidance for anyone who struggles to pray: 

‘And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But 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. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.’ 

God is inviting us to pray like a child with their father - it’s simpler, more intentional and more honest than perhaps we have been making it.  

Pray intentionally: closing the door on distraction 

Jesus begins by showing us what prayer is not. He warns against praying ‘to be seen by others’, calling such people ‘hypocrites’ – those who pretend to be something they are not. Their prayers have become a performance, and Jesus says the admiration they receive is the only reward they will get. 

God does not want a performance from us. To help us avoid this trap, Jesus gives a wonderfully practical instruction: Go into your room and shut the door! God wants a personal, sincere and intimate relationship with us. He invites us to meet with him one to one, free from the pressure of impressing others.  

This requires intentionality. Private prayer doesn’t just happen. It takes effort, planning and discipline. Corrie Ten Boom puts it bluntly: ‘Don’t pray when you feel like it. Rather, have an appointment with the Lord, and keep it!’ 

The ‘room’ (derived from the Greek word ‘tamieion’, sometimes translated ‘inner room’) Jesus speaks of can certainly be a physical space – a quiet corner, a chair by a window, a walk outside – but it can also be a deliberate inner posture. We are free to connect with God whilst on the bus, cooking dinner or in the bathroom. The point is not the location but the intention: stepping away from distractions to be with God. 

One of my favourite examples of this is Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley. Living in a tiny home with many children and many challenges, she would sit down in the middle of the chaos and throw her apron over her head to pray. It was her makeshift ‘inner room’. She believed private prayer was essential – like oxygen – and her commitment shaped not only her own life but the lives of her children. 

Jesus also tells us to ‘close the door’, reminding us that prayer requires focus. Making time for prayer often feels really, really hard and this is because it is vehemently contested. Our enemy does not want us to pray and he will use busyness, distraction, guilt, doubt, tiredness and shame to stop us. He hates it when we pray because he knows that prayer is where the battle is won.  

Pray honestly: coming as you are 

We can intentionally choose to come to God whenever and wherever we are – and we can come exactly as we are. Prayer is not the place for pretence, sugarcoating or striving. Verse 7 instructs us not to ‘babble’ like pagans. We do not need to work hard to secure God’s attention. We already have it. He knows our needs before we speak a word.  

I find that journaling helps remind me of God’s faithful attentiveness. I can look back over the years and see how prayers have been answered, in God’s way and in his timing. 

This frees us to be honest. Our heavenly Father wants us to come as we are – with all our frailties, messes, fears, burdens and vulnerabilities. He wants heartfelt, honest dialogue. He invites us to pour out our hearts. 

The Bible offers so many beautiful examples of people doing just… Elijah, exhausted and afraid in the wilderness, cries out, ‘Oh just kill me!’ God meets him there, tending to his physical needs and quietly, gently restoring him (1 Kings 19:3-9). When Samuel is rejected by the Israelites, he brings his discouragement to God, who comforts him and guides him forward (1 Samuel 8:6-7, 21). These stories remind us that we can be raw with God, we can say how things really are, we can bring him our heart’s cry. 

Life can sometimes feel overwhelming, as though we are responsible for holding everything together. Prayer helps restore perspective. It reminds us that God is God and we are not. We are limited by design, and our limitations are not failures to hide but realities to acknowledge. I was never meant to carry the weight of the world – and neither were you! In prayer, we place that weight back into God’s hands. 

Pray expectantly: trusting God to meet you there

Jesus ends with a promise: ‘Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’. What is this reward? It may not be dramatic or immediate. It may not look like the answers we expect. But there is a deep, quiet reward that comes from meeting God in secret. 

Perhaps the reward is simply knowing we are held by God in the midst of our challenges. Perhaps it is the nourishment and strength we receive to continue our journey. Perhaps it is the deepening experience of God’s presence – his hope, his joy, his coming alongside us. 

The reward of secret prayer is God himself.