becoming a father is really something years ago an old friend of mine warned me about it there I was

he said hanging out with friends playing computer games going to work not really caring about anything

that much and then I was standing in the hospital and my little girl was handed to me and right

away I knew I'd die for her. It was overwhelming, he said.

Well, fast forward a decade or so to the Advent Hospital in Daytona, Florida. I was handed my

first-born daughter, and sure enough, I cried so hard, I seriously thought I was about to drop

her, which wouldn't have been the greatest of

starts, for either of us. There she was, her head in the crook of my elbow. I'm feeling it now,

even as I remember it. How can you feel so strongly about someone you've never met before?

And yet, weirdly, you feel as if you've always known them.

I was on my guard when daughter number two arrived, and yet there it was, exactly the same response.

I've experienced love before, but never love like that, the love a father has for his child.

What if Almighty God... never love like that the love a father has for his child what if almighty god loves us like that even more than that god tells us in his word to address him as abba. Abba is an Aramaic word meaning father. In Mark

14, verse 36, Jesus uses it, Abba, father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

In Galatians chapter 4, verse 6, the Apostle Paul picks up on this when he says to all believers,

because you are sons of God, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying

Abba, Father.

In Romans chapter 8 verse 15, Paul again tells us, you have received the spirit of adoption

as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

I mentioned in another episode of Simply Put, the one about adoption, that one scholar who studied

Jewish antiquity has said that although in Judaism there were extensive lists of titles

you could use to address God in prayer, not one of those titles was Father.

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