Friendship with God implies an intimacy of discourse and a unity of spirit. The intimacy of discourse is two-sided : God speaks His will and reveals his feelings through the medium of His Word ; and we speak to Him through the medium of prayer.
But the unity of spirit must come first. We can neither hear nor speak acceptably unless we reject the thinking of the flesh and allow ourselves, through the operation of the logos, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and tune in to the infinite.
It goes almost without saying that one cannot be a friend to another without he first know that other. This apparently fine distinction between ‘knowing’ and ‘knowing of’ is illustrated by two passages of Scripture. In John 4. 22, Jesus, addressing the Samaritan woman, said, “Ye worship ye know not what : we know what we worship : for salvation is of the Jews”. The Lord explained that God is a spirit; and that a knowledge of what God is, is a pre-requisite for salvation. But the same Lord indicates the need of a deeper knowledge and more profound and beautiful acquaintance. In John 17. 3, he prays, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee. . .” The true significance of this knowledge is not fully revealed until we notice that Jesus is here praying for his disciples and not for the world (verse 9) : the ‘they’ of verse three is the disciples. As disciples, they would know what they worshipped ; but without the intimacy of fellowship with the object of their worship, they had no hope.
The Greek text supports our distinction. In John 4 the word for knowledge is ‘oida’, (to know), but in John 1 7 it is ‘ginosko”, (to experience).
Personal relationship with God is, then, established by the application of His word, and by prayer. But it cannot be too strongly emphasised that there can be no acceptable prayer without a proper preparation of the inner man.
This inner man is born into the family of God through the operation of the spirit word upon the whole personality (1 Peter 1. 23).
Jesus was the Word made flesh ; and, ascending to the Father in a spiritual body, became the spirit Word having an embodied and separate existence that it never had before (John 1. 1), but nevertheless existing where it was before (John 6. 62). From thence he sent forth the spirit of truth—another comforter who should lead into all truth ; and which remains with us as the New Testament which is the revelation of the Old.
So through the word which leads to Christ and which is Christ we are brought into family relationship with the Deity Himself, and remain in that family relationship through the continuation of that same mediation’
This outflowing of the Word of life and its application to prayer are beautifully epitomised in the divine title ‘El Shaddai’.
The title is translated “God Almighty” and does have the significance of ‘force’ and ‘power’ ; but such translations do not plumb the depths and beauties of it. The rendering “God Almighty” takes into account the suffix ‘dai’, but not the prefix ‘shad’. The word ‘shad’ is Hebrew for ‘breast’. What beautiful thoughts must surely come to mind when we contemplate the meaning which a mother’s breast has for the suckled child. Not only the meanings of strength and nourishment, but also those of restfulness and peace.
El Shaddai evokes in my mind the picture of the all-powerful God supplying strength and nourishment and peace—not only, as the breast supplies them, physically ; but spiritually too, the bosom of God gives us all needed spiritual solace, comfort and upbuilding of the inner man : the power of the Word and prayer to build a new man of the spirit within us to the praise of His eternal glory. For the eternal Father will yet be glorified in a multitude of begotten ones into whom He will unstintingly have poured Himself.
The child begins to love his father when he begins to recognise his father’s love for him. It is only as the child learns to appreciate his father’s person that he will seek his companionship—and that, more and more as the appreciation grows. Together with the growth of appreciation and love will confidence grow. The child will learn to confide in his father : he will take to him all his fears and problems, all his loves and joys, to seek the reassurances and understandings that a good father supplies so adequately. But never so adequately as the Father of heaven and earth, with whom we have to do.
Surely, the apostle Paul has beautifully summed up our thoughts to this point in our considerations :
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man : that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end” (Eph. 3.14-21).
These words amplify, condense and prove every point that we have postulated.
Preparation for prayer, then, requires a pre-eminent appreciation of the person of God, of his love towards us, of his unbounded ability to provide every need and more : it requires an acceptance of his gifts, of his outflowing strength, and the solace of his fellowship and friendship ; and thus to feel in the utmost need that “underneath are the everlasting arms”.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay