Abba Father

Isaiah 6 contains a famously glorious passage about Jesus: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). Growing up, my vision of the Lord in my mind was that he was off in a distant place, removed from me, an entity I needed to address in the language of the King James Bible as “Thee” and “Thou.”

Yet what does our high, holy God have to say about us lowly, sinful people who follow him? Isaiah tells us: “Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (57:15). Yes, our Father is holy, majestic and glorious — yet he abases himself to dwell within our humble, sin-stained hearts.

I think every child instinctively knows the difference between hating religion and loving Jesus. One day when my daughter was young, she popped up between the pages of the newspaper I was reading. I was tired and shooed her off, wanting just a few minutes to relax before working on the sermon I needed for the next Sunday. But she kept popping up, saying, “Daddy, I want to tell you something.” I just kept shooing her away, thinking of the clock ticking minutes off my time of relaxation. This back-and-forth stopped when I finally said, “Honey, what do you want to tell me?” She answered, “I love you.”

She knew the difference between religion — my perfectionism as a preacher — and loving Jesus, which she was demonstrating to me. God’s Word makes it clear he wants us to approach him as my daughter did me — calling out to our “Daddy,” Abba, who is nearby, not distant or beyond our reach.