Courtesy | Unsplash

When Jesus said in Matthew 6:6 to go into your room and shut the door when you pray, he didn’t mean to shut people out of your prayer life.

Humans are meant to pray in community. That’s why we’re born into families who teach us how to pray and why monks live in monasteries where they learn how to pray better. As students, few of us live with our families during the school year, and we definitely don’t live in monasteries. But we can find a group of friends who will get on their knees with us.

Your zeal for the Lord will increase as you pursue a relationship with him alongside other people who also desire to know him better. It’s inspiring to see how the Lord is working in your friends’ hearts and how they understand matters of faith that you struggle with. And when we pray in community, we’re particularly close to Christ, who said, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

If you pray with a friend, your relationship with each other will strengthen as you orient yourselves toward Christ.

Having a church community is helpful, and saying grace before meals is a start. But we can all benefit from friends who will pore over the Gospel of Matthew for morning prayer or who will sing praise and worship together at night. 

Perhaps the most mournful line of the Gospels is Christ’s reprimand to Peter, James, and John, who could not stay awake with him while he prayed in the garden. 

Spend an hour with your friends in prayer. Even Christ wanted companionship in Gethsemane.