War Room was released in August 2015 by Alex and Stephen Kendrick and opened at number one at the box office. Miss Clara, the character Elizabeth meets who becomes her prayer mentor, was widely described by audiences as the most memorable character in the film. She is in her seventies, sharp, direct, and has been doing spiritual warfare in her prayer closet for decades. Prayer closets like it, covered wall to wall with prayers, names, and Scripture, exist in the homes of serious intercessors across every denomination. The film's central premise that the primary battle in Elizabeth's marriage is not between Elizabeth and Tony but between the kingdom of light and the enemy who has been given a foothold is not dramatic license. It is what the New Testament describes.

Matthew 6:16-18 is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is giving instructions on three practices: giving, prayer, and fasting. The structure is identical for all three: When you give, when you pray, when you fast. Not if. When. Jesus assumed His followers would do all three. On fasting specifically, the instruction is to fast in secret. The word translated reward is the Greek apodidomi, meaning to give back what is owed. God, who sees the secret, responds to the man who fasts in genuine dependence on Him.

Miss Clara's prayer closet represents the kind of prayer life most men do not have because they have never been shown it. The connection to Matthew 6 is precise: Jesus assumes you will fast. He gives no instruction on whether to do it but only on how. Most men have never fasted in their adult lives. But the practice is ancient, biblical, and particularly powerful for men because it does something specific: it confronts the assumption that the man can handle the spiritual battle with the same tools he handles the physical one. Fasting says I am not primarily a physical being. I am a spiritual one. And the battle in my home requires weapons that are not available to the merely physical man.