A Prayer about Really Knowing God

Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me… Jeremiah 9:23-24

Gracious God, 

May we learn to boast in the wild reality

that by your grace 

we do have the understanding to know you.

 

What indeed must we know about you?

It is true, 

we need to know about you, 

that you are  

all-knowing, 

all-holy, 

all-powerful, 

all-loving, etc.

 

But we also need to know you, personally. 

Theologian J.I. Packer taught us how we could know you personally in his book, Knowing God. 

He explained that 

if we were to meet the Queen of England or the President of the United States,

they would have to be willing to be known by us 

in order for us to get to know them. 

If they didn’t share much about themselves, 

we wouldn’t feel we had the right to complain. 

But you, oh gracious God, 

you initiate the conversation, 

you “start at once to take us into your confidence, 

and tell us frankly what is in your mind 

on matters of common concern…

you invite us to join you 

in particular undertakings you have planned, 

and ask us to make ourselves permanently available 

for this kind of collaboration when you need us….”*

 

When we think of it this way, kind Lord, 

how we see your grace, 

how we see your love.

 

We can know you 

because you have allowed us 

and invited us

to know you. 

We can know you by meditating on your Word, 

not just reading it and studying it, 

although those are good things, 

but by engaging our imaginations and intellect.

 

We can know you 

by asking Jesus, 

you-in-the-flesh, 

to help us know you. 

Through him we see 

that knowing you is 

like knowing a good Father, 

like “a wife knowing her husband, 

a subject knowing his king 

and a sheep knowing its shepherd”*

 

Lord, slow us down 

that we might spend time getting to know you, 

That we might discover one of the 

most life-changing truths ever, 

which we will pray about tomorrow: 

you have known us. 

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Read Jeremiah 9:23-24; 1 John 2:1-11; John 17:3; Psalm 100:3

*This prayer inspired by reading the introduction to J.I. Packer’s great book, Knowing God. Quotes from pages 36-37.