Hearing His Voice #124

Because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

Galatians 4:6

The Spirit of God puts a child’s cry within us. We call out, “Abba,” an intimately familiar term for “father”—like Daddy—in order to talk to our heavenly Father. We are not slaves, as Romans 8:15 assures us, but adopted and favored children in the divine family. We can assume familiarity with God. We can speak to Him on intimate terms. We can come boldly before His throne without cowering before His majesty.

If God’s Spirit prompts us to speak to God in familiar, intimate language, it follows that He would speak to us in very familiar terms as well. God calls us with terms of endearment, appeals to the secrets of our hearts, and invites us to sit in His lap and experience His affection. How could He not? If He puts the cry for Abba within us, He will never rebuke the intimacy that follows. He allows us to speak personally to Him, and He speaks personally to us with tenderness and warmth. However closely He relates to Jesus, He relates to the Spirit of Jesus within us.

Don’t let people formalize your relationship with God by warning you about becoming “too familiar” or “too intimate.” They will clothe such warnings with an appeal for “awe” and “respect”—appropriate attitudes, to be sure, but not when they undermine our childlike relationship with our heavenly Father. God, who knows how to open our hearts with just the right words, will often make His words deeply personal. They might sound frivolous to someone else, but they certainly don’t to us because we know what they mean. He is speaking to a deep place in our hearts, like a father’s play talk can carry enormous weight with a child. In the divine family, that’s always appropriate.

Abba, my Father, You know that I respect You and bow before You. But I also need to feel Your arms around me and hear Your personal words. Speak warmly, playfully, affectionately. I need my Abba’s love.