Relationships are an integral part of life. More than that, they make life worth living. A meaningful relationship is all about knowing someone. But what exactly does that mean? The word ‘know’ is quite ambiguous. The old King James translation of the Bible used the word ‘know’ in this way: ‘Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived’. Does that mean knowing someone is all about sex? Our post-modern society, driven by the movie-makers, seems to think so. But this can hardly be true. Imagine a man saying to his fiancée, ‘I’m not going to talk a whole lot; I’ll get to know you through sex’. Would the marriage last? Would he really get to know her? If you could get to know someone by sex then Hollywood would have the best marriages, and men sleeping with prostitutes would produce meaningful relationships.
The most secure and only life-producing relationship for humans is one between a man and a woman in the context of marriage. For this God-ordained, exclusive, life-time partnership to survive, the goal must be to know and serve the other person. In this context, knowing the other person is not about sex; it is about communication.
Communication is foundational. It is part of a principle C.S. Lewis calls ‘first and second things’. Having the right order is critical. When we don’t put first things first we lose both first things and second things. For example, the foundation of a house is a first thing and the walls and roof are second things. Reverse the order and we lose the lot. Communication is a ‘first thing’ in marriage and sex is a second thing. Put sex first and we get neither. Communication is foundational because it is the only way we can truly know someone.
The goal of marriage is to know and serve the other person. The ultimate goal of life is to know and serve God. Knowing God is most important because unless we know Him we can’t really serve Him. What is the key to knowing God? Do you have to be talented? Or articulate? Or be able to read and write? Or be a certain age and belong to certain class or society?
Our Creator has given us something simple and fair, a mode of communication that excludes no one, no matter what their colour, background, race, language, education or age may be. God’s gift to humanity and the means by which we can truly know Him is prayer. Prayer brings God up close and personal. You don’t have to be smart or experienced. The prayers of pre-school kids have God’s attention as much as those of senior pastors.
Men who know their God are before anything else men who pray… — J.I. Packer, Knowing God, Chap. 2 (p. 26)
Praying in faith is foundational to the Christian life. Prayer is a ‘first thing’. And until it holds that position we won’t receive its full benefit. It’s like a house foundation. Unless it’s a first thing we cannot benefit from it. The mistake I made was to include reading books and studying the Bible as ‘first things’. I’m not suggesting, of course, that reading and studying the Bible, like the walls and the roof, are not important. They are just not ‘first things’ when it comes to knowing God.
Knowledge about God and knowing God are not the same. Atheists can, and many have, studied the Bible. But all they know amounts to nothing because they can’t pray. Praying in faith is what separates those who know God and those who know about God.
Interest in theology, and knowledge about God, and the capacity to think clearly and talk well on Christian themes, is not the same as knowing Him. — J.I. Packer, Knowing God, Chap. 2 (p. 23)
If you still have some doubts about prayer as a ‘first thing’, Gethsemane (see Luke 22:39-46) should settle the issue. When Jesus was sweating blood in His darkest hour and our eternal destiny was on the line, and He had not yet said, ‘Not my will, but yours, be done’, what was He doing? When His soul was in anguish and He stumbled back to His disciples for help, did he ask them to read the scriptures or start singing ‘praise and worship’ songs? No, He begged them to pray.
For most of us the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Removing mountains can wait. – C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Chap. 11, para. 10
As our wounded Saviour looks at our smart sophisticated western church with all its knowledge, resources and music, His plea has not changed. We need to obey, and pray. Before Jesus was arrested His last request was, ‘Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation’. It’s obvious from the temptations the Western Church has succumbed to that we have not been praying. We seem to spend all our time writing books and music, doing everything else but the ‘first thing’. It’s the persecuted church that leads the way when it comes to obedience and prayer. They really know God. Why? They pray. They even pray for us, that we would be delivered from our self-preservation and materialism.
Prayer is a ‘first thing’. Renew your mind to believe it and prayer will change your life. Oswald Chambers was right: ‘Prayer is not an exercise, it’s the life of the saint’.
(All Bible quotes from the ESV)