The Interior Room Where the Name Already Echoes

Teresa of Avila described the soul as a castle with many mansions, and at the very center, in the innermost room, Christ waits. Most of us live in the outer corridors — busy, distracted, reciting creeds we have memorized but not yet inhabited. Paul writes that we must believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord. But what does it mean to believe in the heart rather than merely in the mind?

In centering prayer, you sit with a single sacred word and let it carry you past the noise of thought into something deeper. You descend through layers of distraction, self-image, and fear until you arrive at a place you did not construct — a stillness that was already there, already occupied. This is the heart Paul means. Not the organ, not the emotions, but the ground of your being where God has been speaking your name since before you were born.

When you finally say "Jesus is Lord" from that interior room, the words are not performance. They are recognition. You are not informing God of your decision. You are discovering that He has already raised the dead thing in you, and your mouth simply confirms what the silence revealed.

Sit with Romans 10:9 today as you would in lectio divina. Let the verse read you. Let confession rise not from obligation but from the innermost mansion where the Living Christ already dwells.