"a personal, communicative response to the knowledge of God."(p.45)
He goes on further to state that:"All human beings have some knowledge of God available to them. At some level, the have an indelible sense that they need something or someone who is on a higher plane and infinitely greater than they are. Prayer is seeking to respond and connect to that being and reality, even if it is no more than calling out into the air for help.
That is, I believe, the common denominator of all human prayer. However, because our definition understands prayer as a response to the knowledge of God, it means that prayer is profoundly altered by the amount and accuracy of that knowledge."(emphasis mine)
This reaffirms my position that we all have a duty to be mini Theologians! We need to learn more about God; who he is, what he's done, and what he's going to do. This knowledge has a wider application than just filling our brains with cool facts, it influences even the most private times of prayer. The more we know and understand about God, the more intimate I believe our prayers will become.
This is intriguing. Essentially, we can become more effective in prayer through knowing God better. There is a danger in this though. If this results in us thinking that the resulting increase in effectiveness is attributable to us, we have misstepped. It seems to me the increase in our knowledge of God is beneficial to prayer because of God; our prayers more accurately align with his will, we understand more clearly why we can have faith in God, we see more profoundly why Christ's work enables and encourages to approach God, etc..
ReplyDeleteThis is a great encouragement to knowing God.