Broughton Knox was famous among his students for his ability to summarize Christian doctrine succinctly. In this second part of a seven-part series, he speaks of the way that prayer involves a deep recognition of the nature and character of God.

God is a great God; he is the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, yet he invites us to come before him with our prayers. In the prayers of the Bible, the most frequent form of recognition of God is the recognition of his power in creation. When the early Christians approached God in prayer (Acts 4:24) they began, “O Lord, you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that in them is”. They recognized the sovereign power of God. God the Creator was the One to whom they were bringing their petitions.

Similarly in the Old Testament, when David prayed to God at the dedication of the gifts for the temple (1 Chron 29:10-11), he addressed God as “yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and the earth is yours, yours is the kingdom, Lord, and you are exalted as head above all”. In the prayer at the reading of the law, in Nehemiah 9:5-6, God is addressed “you are the Lord, even you alone, you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all things that are thereon, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all”.

The God to whom we come in prayer is a great God, the Creator God, the sovereign God over all things. Our prayers must recognize to whom it is we pray. Our Lord himself set the example in this. In Matthew 11 he began his prayer, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth”. In this opening phrase he established the relationship—“Father”—and he recognized and adored God's power in the phrase “Lord of heaven and earth”.

Adoration and praise is an essential part of our prayer and it arises naturally as we reflect on the greatness of the One who invites us to come into his presence with our prayers. When our Lord spent the night in Gethsemane agonising in prayer he addressed God as “Father” and he recognized God's character by that wonderful, short, very telling phrase, “nothing is too hard for you”. This prayer is recorded in Mark 14:36 where we read “and he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible to you, remove this cup from me. However, not what I will but what you will”.

‘Abba’, the Aramaic word for ‘my father’, was the word that Jesus learned in his own home as a child. It was how he addressed his parents, and it is also how he addressed God. We have, in this wonderful phrase ‘Abba, Father’, a double underlining of the fact that we are related to God to whom we bring our prayers, as a child related to a loving father. Then our Lord went on to recognize the power of the One to whom he brought his petition, “all things are possible to you”, said our Lord. He was bringing this petition, which he felt so deeply, to the One who was able to hear and to answer, if that were his wise will.

Another form of opening recognition found in the Scripture is that God is the covenant God. He keeps his promises (e.g. Dan 9:4 and II Chron 6:14). In the Lord's Prayer we have a very short phrase recognizing God's character—“Father in heaven”. In these three words we acknowledge our relationship with the One to whom we pray and we recognize his status. He is our Father in heaven, the heavenly, supreme God. It will be seen that mysticism and so-called wordless prayer is not prayer at all, for in this form of mental activity there is no relationship acknowledged, nor is there recognition as to the character of the One to whom we bring our prayers.

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