Daddy Dear

Years ago I was in a prayer meeting with one of God's dearest old saints. I asked her to voice our closing prayer. After moments of quiet, she started out by saying, "Daddy Dear". Her sense of intimacy with God caught me totally off guard. There was nothing pretentious or sanctimonious about it. She felt she was talking to her dear daddy.

I was reminded of this incident when I read Paul's joyful statement, "We cry out, Abba, Father!" (RM 8:15b). Once a person becomes a believer, he or she can spend the rest of their life living in such a way as to say, "I will arise and go to my Father." Our text is one of the most tender ever written by Paul the Apostle. Enamored at the familiarity allowed us in Christ, he used two different languages to express the word "Father." "Abba" is the Aramaic word for daddy; "Pater," translated father, is the Greek word.

         Paul wrote all of his letters in Greek. It was "the" universal language of his day, but was not his native tongue. He grew up on Aramaic, a Hebrew dialect. As he wrote this passage, his heart became so filled with emotion that the only word he could use to describe the way he felt is the nursery word he had used back in Tarsus.

         "Abba" is the word he learned at his mother's knee. Though he had to translate it for his Greek readers, he still preferred the word he used when a child.

         No matter how many languages we learn, in moments of excitement we will tend to return to our native tongue. Hence, when Paul's heart was overflowing, he found himself bursting forth in the tender language of his own childhood. It is obvious that to Paul it was an exciting and blessed privilege to call God "Father." It's a title we should never take for granted.

 

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