Piper on Prayer (2): “If you knew Him, you would ask!”

Continuing the series I began a few days ago with some notable quotes from John Piper on prayer. This is perhaps my favorite section of Piper’s chapter on prayer (chapter 6) in Desiring God:

If You Knew Him You Would Ask!

In another text in John that shows how prayer glorifies God, Jesus asks a woman for a drink of water.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water!” (John 4:9-10)

If you were a sailor severely afflicted with scurvy, and a generous man came aboard ship with his pockets bulging with vitamin C and asked you for an orange slice, you might give it to him. But if you knew he was generous, and that he carried all you needed to be well, you would turn the tables and ask him for help.

Jesus says to the woman, “If you just knew the gift of God and who I am, you would ask me-you would pray to me!” There is a direct correlation between not knowing Jesus well and not asking much from him. A failure in our prayer life is generally a failure to know Jesus. “If you knew who was talking to you, you would ask me!” A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn’t know Clark Kent is on board. “If you knew, you would ask.” A prayerless Christian is like having your room wallpapered with Sak’s Fifth Avenue gift certificates but always shopping at Ragstock because you can’t read. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that speaks to you, you would ask-you would ask.!”

And the implication is that those who do ask-Christians who spend time in prayer-do it because they see that God is a great Giver and that Christ is wise and merciful and powerful beyond measure. And therefore their prayer glorifies Christ and honors his Father. The chief end of man is to glorify God. Therefore, when we become what God created us to be we become people of prayer.

From John Piper, Desiring God, Chapter 6.