Who’s Your Daddy?

Who’s Your Daddy?

The phrase “Who’s your daddy?” can mean, among other things, “Who’s got your back?” The answer can make decisions more clear and calm countless anxieties. That’s because our daddy bestows our identity.

Ages ago, long before anyone was coolly asking, “Who’s your daddy?” someone was answering. His name was Paul, and he was telling dear friends of his—friends who seemed to have forgotten—who their daddy really was. “God sent his Son . . . to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:4-6).

Abba for Paul meant daddy. It’s a child’s word for his beloved father. Intimate. Connected. Familiar. Sweet. It reveals a sure and certain relationship, one that offers security and comfort. When our hearts cry out in confusion or pain or fear, the automatic response is “Abba!” or “Daddy!”

So who’s my daddy? He’s the one whose name I call when I need help or hope or healing. My daddy, and yours, is the one we run to when, as Martin Luther wrote, “the Law scolds us, sin screams at us, death thunders at us, the devil roars at us.” Luther knew that “in the midst of the clamor the Spirit of Christ cries in our hearts: ‘Abba, Father.’ And this little cry of the Spirit transcends the hullabaloo of the Law, sin, death, and the devil, and finds a hearing with God.”^a

Abba may be a small word, but it speaks volumes. I may be in trouble, and help may seem far away, but when push comes to shove, I know I am his child. Who’s my daddy? He is. And when I forget, my elder brother Paul reminds me that I am adopted and I belong. Who could ask for more?

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10, NASB

^a Martin Luther, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), trans. Theodore Graebner (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1949), chap. 4; available at https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/galatians.vii.html.