The Cry for Intimate Belonging
In the familiarity of a deep and personal closeness the Lord responds to His disciples' question - teach us to pray.
One of His disciples said to Jesus, Lord teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, when you pray say: FATHER hallowed be your name... (Luke 11:1-2)
Jesus' counsel to His own is to see the God of heaven as their personal father; address Him accordingly.
Later in Gethsemane Jesus addresses His same father in heaven in the dearest of terms - Abba Father:
‘Abba, Father,’ He said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from Me... (Mark 14:36)
Within this most warm cameo of Divine relationships Jesus recaptured Eden through the words - Abba Father.
To Jesus and His siblings (that's us) the pattern of Eden rises again at that first Easter, to call God daddy - for that is what Abba Father means.
Jesus instructs His followers to view the Father as Adam did and not as the Pharisees. The fearsome God of Sinai isn't the God Adam walked with.
Adam knew a daddy who provided, trusted, empowered, instructed, counseled, questioned, walked and lived love beside His first son and daughter. This is the Father Jesus knew too. He is the perfect model of daddy.
Brennan Manning captures the pulse of Abba Father when he explains it as:
the cry of the heart for intimate belonging.
Abba Father is so often obscured from sight through our poor role models (despite their good intentions). The Israelites I suspect may have blindly lived in little idea of a gentle God, the One who too longs for intimacy.
Abba Father is not the dad who thunders from mountaintops in the middle of deserts, or under a canopy of lightning shredded clouds. He is the God who still glides through gardens, listening alongside those He loves, and especially those in tears.
The father of Eden is the same father in Gethsemane, the same one who wants to live and stay near you today.
Today's Soul Snippet:
'Pray today for your tomorrow depends upon it.'