You received the Spirit of sonship, and by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Rm 8:15)
You are my Father, my Daddy, my Papa. You love me and care for me. You make yourself known and call me to commune with you. Grant to me a continual and abiding intimacy with you. Deepen our relationship and let it be said in heaven and on earth that here is one who knows God.
Can you know a computer? How about a factory? Or a theory? Or a process? Of course, the answer is yes. We can know all sorts of things, but knowledge does come in different varieties. It is one thing to know a tree and quite another to know a woman. Personhood adds a dimension to knowledge. When I speak of knowing my daughter Charissa, I am saying something quite different than when I speak of knowing engineering. My knowledge of Charissa has a personal element to it that engineering will never have. That’s because Charissa is a person, and we can know people in a deeper, richer way than we can know curried rice or the World Cup. Personality enriches knowledge. Having said that, I do not mean that we know all people the same. I do not know my cousins the same way I know Charissa, and I do not know the chancellor of Germany the same way I know my cousins. I do not have the same level of intimacy with all people. But because people are people, if the president of Indonesia were in my family, I could know him as well as I know my daughter. In fact, I have no doubt that some people know him that way now.
When we discuss the attributes of God, it is sometimes easy to get philosophical, but God is not a philosophy. He is a person. God is not the Watchmaker or the Grand Idea or the Great-Spirit-in-the-Sky. He is not a detached force, He is not nature, and He is not the unfeeling ground of all being. He is a distinct person who thinks, feels and wills. His nature is personal just as your dad’s nature is personal. He, thus, desires personal relationship, and He has taken great steps to make Himself known. He loves us and desires our love in return. If it were possible to add wonder to infinity, this truth would do so. The unchanging, infinite, sovereign creator of the universe wants you to know and love Him. He came to the garden and walked with the first pair; He likened Himself to a husband (Hos), a father (Mt 6:9), a friend (Jn 15:15). If we truly understand what prayer is all about, we know that it requires a personal God. God wants us to communicate with Him, not because He needs to know something but because He wants relationship. The Incarnation was a relational move. God became man because God wanted to reconcile the world to Himself (II Cor 5:18-19). God became man because God wanted a face to face. God became man because God wanted to restore communion. God is our Abba, our Father, our Daddy. He wants us to be family, not just observers or workers.
I recall a speaker telling about a time when he had traveled to Israel. He was at the airport and was passing by the place where plane passengers filtered out into the public. Two young children, maybe four and six, recognized their dad returning home. They ran up to him shouting “Abba! Abba!” and jumped into his arms. With God, we are those small children, and He delights to see us run to Him and jump into His arms. Indeed, we, too, find no greater joy than to revel in our God.
We long for a close relationship with our Father. We were made for such a relationship because we were made in the image of that Father. We are relational creatures by creation. It is relationship that gives depth and meaning to life, and it is relationship with God that gives ultimacy to life. People who live for their gardens, their research, the next drink or the next deal are to be pitied. They have sacrificed relationship for something that will never deliver. But people who live for their spouse or children are equally to be pitied, for they have sacrificed the ultimate relationship for something lesser. Human relationships are wonderful. Good ones give us a taste of heaven, but they can give only a taste; they were never meant to be the full meal. It is in God that the soul will truly get to feast, and it is His great pleasure to set the table.
