Abba Father

And because you are sons,

God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,

crying, “Abba! Father!”

Galatians 4:6

 

I’ve been a Christian now for almost 45 years, and I’ve read this passage hundreds of times., I’ve taught it in seminary and preached it from the pulpit. But God spoke it to my own heart it at a dark, low, sad time in my life. I cried out, “Abba, Father!” And I talked to my Father as His child.

I had always read this as describing the joyful, exuberant cry of a Christian who grasps his sonship, is overwhelmed with excitement that God is his Father, and so he comes into the Father’s presence with his head held high, shouting out, “Abba! Father!” But maybe Paul was describing just what I was going through: a child of God feeling weak, spiritually depleted and helpless—but at that moment, still knowing that I could cry out “Abba, Father!” and my Father would be there for me, and hear me, and love me.

That’s when Jesus cried out to His Abba Father.

It was at the darkest lowest moment of His life. He was on His knees, face on the ground, sweating drops of blood as He looked ahead to the physical torture, and emotional abandonment of the cross. But He knew that His Abba Father was there. He could go to Him, He could pour out His broken heart, He could even ask Him if the cup could pass Him by. At that moment the Holy Spirit was flooding Jesus with assurance that He was the beloved Son of God, and He could cry out to His Father.

So that’s the way I read this passage now, not so much as the joyful cry of a Christian on a sun-shiny day, but as the whimpering cry of a child of God on a dark, terrible night who knows that His Father is there for him.

Our 4 kids are grown now, but during the years that we were raising our 4 kids, we always left our bedroom door open a crack because we never knew when we might hear, in the middle of the night, “Mom! Dad!” When Rachel was in high school she came down with a severe bone infection that put her in the hospital for two weeks. She was so sick. And when she came home from the hospital I remember in the middle of the night, hearing that faint cry. I would fly into her room—my feet hardly touched the floor.

How much more our heavenly Father hears our cries. His door is always open, and if you are His child, He is waiting to hear your faintest whimper, in the darkest night: “Abba, Father!” Do you cry out to Him? You can. It’s part of your birthright as a child of God. You can say with the Psalmist in Ps. 116:1,2: “I love the Lord, because He hears My voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live!”