Abba

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father…”

- Matthew 6:9

When I get home from work, my five-year-old son doesn’t grovel at my feet and say, “oh revered and awesome Dad, may I supplicate thee for a moment of your time. I beseech you to play in the yard with me if it would please you.” Eyes avoiding mine. Waiting in fear of my disapproval. No–he hears my car pull in the driveway and runs to the top of the stairs waiting to run into my open arms. He can’t wait to spend time with me. He asks me for things. He shares the highs and lows of his day. 

My son approaches me this way because for all my failings as a father–he knows I love him completely. 

When Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer, he taught us to begin by praying “our father.”

One of the primary things Jesus teaches about prayer is that the God we come to loves us with a fatherly love. Warm. Good. God moves towards us and not away. Disciplines out of love not retribution.  

When Jesus invites us to pray to God as father, He would have spoken the Aramaic word Abba. We would translate this word to English as Daddy. Abba was the name Jewish toddlers used for their Father.

Jesus was the only person to ever teach you could relate to God as your daddy. This was as revolutionary 2,000 years ago as it is today. 

AW Tozer said, “what comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

John Mark Comer explains that idea this way, ”If you think of God as an angry tyrant in the sky, mad at the world, waiting to lay into you... or the cosmic life coach there to make you happy, but who doesn’t seem to deliver — you will not be drawn to prayer.”

When you pray, know that your Abba in heaven sees you, knows you, and longs to draw near to you.