Reconnection
I’ve been going back through the New Testament lately. Slowly, with intention and full saturation of the Word. I feel like I’m taking a Brawny paper towel to Scripture and trying to soak up as much context as I possibly can.
In the past, I read through it more as a challenge. You know the routine. The whole Bible in a year, usually broken up into a few chapters from the Old Testament, followed by a Psalm, a Proverb, and a few chapters from the New Testament. That’s all well and good, and everyone should make it a goal, but I really wanted to be more intentional not only about what I was reading but also about how I was reading. Taking the time to understand the context in which it was written. The timeframe. Who the various New Testament books were written for and why. Cross-referencing related scripture in both the Old and New Testaments with the help of Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary. Reading the Word is one thing. Truly taking the time to understand it is another. Soaking it in. Letting it saturate. Learning how to apply it to your life and the lives of people around you.
That’s the deeper level we should all be striving for. It wasn’t until I went from reading to understanding that I really began to know who God is on a personal level. A father-son relationship with my Heavenly Father and creator. Part of me feels guilty for being a Christian for so long and only recently building that true relationship with Him. But I’m quickly reminded that we all have unique paths. God takes each of his children on journeys that don’t always make sense in the moment. Sometimes we stray, and through brokenness and shame, we return like the prodigal son or daughter, only to find that our refuge was always there waiting.
As I’ve dug deeper into the Word, it has shifted something in me mentally and spiritually. I dwell more on what I read that morning throughout the day. I pray that God reveals things to me through His Word, and much of the time, these little particles of information surface throughout the day. Often I find myself asking, “What am I supposed to do with this?” So I started writing them down. Usually just a word or a few words. Then later, as I fixate on those words, the thoughts compound into something more substantial.
I don’t consider myself a remarkable writer and by no means an educated theologian. I keep most of my thoughts tucked away in a folder on the cloud. But I decided maybe someone reading this might find it interesting, or even helpful. This piece is the result of “the upper room” bouncing around in my head. I had read the passages in the Gospels many times where Jesus sends Peter and John ahead to find a place for the Passover meal. He told them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters. Then you shall say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?’ Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready.” (Luke 22:10-12, NKJV) Honestly, I never gave it much thought beyond the significance of the Last Supper itself. Just the setup for something bigger. But then you read how, after Christ’s ascension, those same disciples went back. They went up into the upper room where they were staying and continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. (Acts 1:13-14, NKJV) And something starts to pull at you. Why that room again? Why together? Why waiting?
One room. One night. One meal that was never just a meal. The Passover was the culmination of something God had been building since the time in Egypt. The lamb, the blood, the covenant. All of it pointing forward to a room in Jerusalem where Jesus would sit down with his closest friends the night before he died. And then that same room became the place where the church was born. This may not be groundbreaking or revolutionary to some of you reading this, but I do feel like God put it on my heart for a reason.
A Covenant Fulfilled
Before Jesus was crucified, he gathered his closest friends for that meal. He washed their feet. He broke bread. He talked about love, the Holy Spirit, and what was coming. Nobody fully understood yet. But they were there, present with him, in a quiet place set apart from everything else. “He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Then he took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.’” (Luke 22:19-20, NKJV)
That word covenant stopped me. Because if you’ve been reading the Old Testament, you know what covenants cost. God made one with Abraham. With Moses. Each one sealed with blood, each one pointing forward to something not yet completed. And here Jesus is, in an upper room, telling his disciples that the cup they’re holding is the fulfillment of all of it. In his blood. Jeremiah had written about it centuries earlier: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.” (Jeremiah 31:31) They were sitting inside the answer to a promise most of them didn’t fully recognize yet.
But what happened next is where it gets even more interesting. Because the upper room didn’t end with the Last Supper.
Waiting Through Prayer
After the crucifixion. After the resurrection. After Jesus ascended, those same disciples went back. Back to that same room. “They went up into the upper room where they were staying, and they continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” (Acts 1:13-14, NKJV) No strategy meeting. No launching anything. Just dependence on a promise.
That’s what gets me. These were people who had walked with Jesus. Who had seen the empty tomb? And still, their next move was to go back upstairs, sit down together, and wait. Not because nothing was happening. Because they understood that what was about to happen required preparation, they couldn’t manufacture it themselves.
I think a lot of us want Pentecost without the upper room. We want the fire, the boldness, and the Spirit moving publicly, but we want to skip the part that comes before it. The quiet part. The hidden part. The part where nothing impressive is happening. But the disciples knew something we often forget. What comes next depends on what happens in the waiting.
Pentecost: When the Waiting Broke Open
Then it happened. “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1-4, NKJV) But notice what that verse says before the wind and the fire. They were all with one accord in one place. Still together. Still unified. Still in that posture of waiting, they had carried from the upper room.
The fire came to people who had already been on their knees. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern. And it raises a question worth sitting with. What if the thing you’re waiting on is waiting on you to go back upstairs?
The Private Room
Jesus modeled this rhythm throughout his entire ministry. He withdrew constantly. He went to quiet places before public ones. He told his followers, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Matthew 6:6, NKJV) Not as a performance. Not for anyone to observe. The private room comes first.
I get it. Modern life doesn’t make it easy to be still. Everything pushes urgency. There’s always something to post, respond to, or ship. But the disciples weren’t checking their notifications in that upper room. They were cutting everything else out so they could be fully present with God. For me, it looks like sitting with Scripture before I reach for my phone in the morning. It looks like actual silence sometimes, which honestly feels uncomfortable. It looks like being present with God before I’m present with anything else.
But here’s what I kept noticing as I studied this. Jesus didn’t send the disciples to that room alone.
The Upper Room Was Never About Solitude
Community was always at the core. The disciples weren’t alone up there. They were together, unified, praying as one body. “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25, NKJV)
Pulling away from the Christian community is its own kind of spiritual drift. The upper room wasn’t a solo retreat. It was shared waiting, shared prayer, shared expectation. Communion with brothers and sisters who were holding onto the same promise together.
Private devotion and shared community aren’t in tension with each other. They’re both part of the same posture. The disciples had both. And it was in that combination where the Holy Spirit moved.
Before Ministry, There Was Surrender
Before there was any public ministry, there was private surrender. Before the boldness, there was the prayer. Before Pentecost, there was the upper room.
That’s the thread that runs through all of it. The covenant was fulfilled at a table. The waiting in prayer after the ascension. The fire that broke out only after they had been still long enough to receive it. None of it happened in a rush. None of it happened alone. All of it happened in that posture of dependence on God rather than confidence in self.
I don’t know where you are right now. Maybe you’re in a season where nothing seems to be moving, and you’re not sure why. Maybe that’s not a problem to solve. Maybe that’s an invitation to go back upstairs, close the door, and trust that something is happening even when you can’t see it yet. The disciples didn’t know what Pentecost would look like either. They just stayed in the room.
What the Upper Room Looks Like Today
The upper room was a literal place. But the principle it represents is just as available to us now as it was to those disciples sitting together in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. The room has changed. The posture hasn’t. For most of us, it won’t look like an upstairs chamber in the ancient city. It will look ordinary. Unglamorous. A kitchen table before the rest of the house wakes up. A parked car before walking into work. A bedroom with the door closed and the phone face down. Anywhere you deliberately step away from the noise and toward God. The upper room had a few consistent elements worth noting.
It was intentional. The disciples didn’t stumble into that room. Jesus sent them there on purpose, and they went. Showing up to your own quiet place requires the same kind of decision. It won’t happen by accident. You have to choose it, usually against something else competing for that time.
It was rooted in Scripture. They weren’t sitting in silence with empty minds. They were people steeped in the Word, watching the promises of God unfold in real time. That’s what the cross-referencing and the deep reading are really for. No information. Transformation. The more saturated you are in Scripture, the more you recognize God’s voice when something surfaces throughout the day.
It was prayer without an agenda. They weren’t presenting God with a project plan. They were waiting on Him. There’s a version of prayer that’s really just a to-do list handed upward. The upper room kind of prayer is different. It’s less talking and more listening. Less asking and more surrendering. “Here I am. What do you want to do?”
It was communal. They weren’t doing this alone, and neither should we. If you don’t have people you pray with regularly, that’s worth paying attention to. Not just a church service you attend, though that matters too. People who know what you’re carrying and will sit in the room with you.
And it involved waiting. That may be the hardest one. We want answers fast. We want the next step clearly labeled. But the upper room teaches that some of what God is doing happens in the in-between. In the quiet before the wind. In the stillness before the fire. Waiting on God is not the absence of movement. It is movement. It’s just happening somewhere you can’t see yet.
So what would it look like to build your own upper room?
Start with the morning before anything else gets your attention. Bring your Bible and something to write with. Pray before you plan. Read slowly enough to actually think about what you’re reading. Cross-reference. Ask God what He wants you to do with what you find. Write down what surfaces. Come back to it.
Find your people and pray with them. Not just about small things. About real things. And when you’re in a season that feels stuck or silent, resist the urge to fill it with noise. Go back upstairs. The disciples didn’t leave that room because it felt unproductive. They stayed because they trusted the One who sent them there.
The fire came. It will again.
That’s the complete piece from top to bottom. Want to make any final adjustments before you post it?