God is Abba

God is our father, our Abba.  It's interesting that the term "father" is not often used to describe God in the Old Testament.  It's not until Jesus came, and consistently prayed aloud using the term "Father," that the idea of God as father cemented.  Makes sense, I think.  Jesus taught us that intimacy with God, our father, is something we innately crave.  In fact, I think Jesus taught us a lot about intimacy - both with each other, and with God.  Think of how He transparently showed emotion:  grief (John 11), anger (Mark 11), and anguish (Luke 22), among other things.  He transparently cried out in His need for His father, His God, just before He died on the cross - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  (Matthew 27:46)

So let's take Jesus' teaching about intimacy and transparency and apply it to this name of God - Abba.  In Biblical Hebrew (which is what Jesus and the disciples would have heard and spoken in the synagogue) ab is "father." But in Aramaic (which they would have spoken during their "down" times, or more intimate times) abbā is a word derived from baby-language.  In the pre-Christian era the usage of the word broadened so that Abbā as a form of address to one's father was no longer restricted to children, but also used by adult sons and daughters. The childish character of the word ("daddy") thus receded, and abbā acquired the warm, familiar ring which we may feel in such an expression as "dear father."  (Information taken from jesuswalk.com)

What a blessed message this really is.  Often I talk about GREAT BIG GOD, little tiny me.  And that dynamic is certainly true.  But that fact that GREAT BIG GOD wants to come down to me, to be not just my huge-everlasting-without-time-or-space creator, but just to be my daddy . . . well, what other "religion" has a God like that?

If you didn't have a good relationship with your father, you might not be able to understand God as father in a positive way.  But, to be blunt - that's no excuse.  God longs to heal your hurts and renew a daddy relationship with you.  You can't hold onto the hurts of the past forever.  At some point you'll have to let go, whether here or on the other side.  What a shame it would be to get to eternity, having spent your whole life lamenting over your bad childhood, to realize that God was waiting that whole time to recreate a new "childhood", just for you.  I think there's a reason Jesus invited us to become like children again - what an opportunity for a new life!

If you did or do have a great relationship with your dad, I pray that you cherish it, and use that relationship as a foundation to understand God the father in a unique and complex way.  He cares for you like no other daddy in the world.

Abba, father, daddy . . . I have to admit . . . I like that.