My Abba Father

I have gone to my mother’s house to celebrate the Kentucky Derby as I have for a decade or more. And in these latter years, Philip and my sons have come with me. This year will be the first time to see many friends and relatives who rejoiced with Philip and I through our lives and mourn now with me in his loss. It is typically a time of joy but I have been full of dread as I anticipate it.

I was managing okay until I greeted those for whom greeting me is brand new since Philip’s gone-ness. The tender distress of the tears in their eyes took me to the edge of my undoing…

This morning, however, my mourning was interrupted when my God in His Abba-ness, sent me to the Galatians Bible study I’ve been doing. He sent me to the very words I needed to calm my ‘racing’ self. (pardon the pun)

Isaiah 43:3-4.3

“Listen to me, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born.4 Even to your old age and gray hairs. I am He, I am He Who will sustain you.I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

Powerful words to sustain, carry and rescue me as He invites me anew into His presence, the presence of my Abba.

Beth Moore’s study in Galatians tells me “‘Abba’ is a cry of the heart not a word spoken calmly with personal detachment and reserve but a word we call or cry out”-Timothy George. 

It is a term drenched in intimacy out of a heart in dire need; not just a response but a summons; a calling out for comfort.

Jesus said it in the Garden of Gethsemane: “‘Abba Father’ all things are possible for You.” Mark 14:36.

Though my need does not compare with His, He reminds me, anyway, of the power of ‘Abba’; gently renewing His invitation to fall at my Father’s feet. 

There I can know, without a doubt, that I am welcomed into the very presence of God as His child. My Father Who will run to meet me at the point of my need regardless of whether I am in true peril or not.

And even more!  He invites me to summon Him, the God of the universe, to my side as a frightened child calling for the safety of a parent’s presence. 

“Abba, all things are possible for You.” I repeat over and over again. And as I do, I am sustained, carried and rescued. Your interrupting redirection; Your intimate invitation; Your illimitable Word of power bids me come with the tenderness of One Who knows me.

Thank You, Abba,

Anne.

May 1, 2021