A woman from Samaria was once conversing with Jesus and puzzling over the answer to an age-old question: Where is the right place to worship? After all, the Jews and Samaritans worshipped in different places, each convinced theirs was the right and best place.
But Jesus answered in a way neither Jew nor Samaritan would have expected: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…. The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:21,23). And just as there is no right place to worship, there is no right place to pray, and just as there is no wrong place to worship, there is no wrong place to pray. No place is holier than any other.
No matter where we are, no matter our circumstances, no one can keep us from praying, for as Jeremy Taylor says, “Every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on, the altar.” Wherever we are, we have whatever we need.
