Saying “God is My Daddy” may seem sacrilegious to you, but it is the absolute truth. I didn’t always see God as my Daddy (Abba-Father), but as I have drawn near to Him, He has drawn even closer to me. He is the one I turn to when I need help or comfort or want to express my deep gratitude. In fact, I imagine myself crawling into His lap when I need respite and just breathing in His Peace. Yep, God is My Daddy and I will thank Him, every day, for adopting me as His daughter.

This blog is one in a journey of a Getting to Know God series. The names and attributes of God are adapted from a guide on the Navigators website called 30 Days of Praying the Names and Attributes of God. Today’s blog corresponds with the 26th Day – God is Father.

Today our Navigators’ Guide says this: “God is Father. Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9), and the Spirit of God taught us to cry, “Abba, Father.”, an intimate Aramaic term similar to “Daddy.” The Creator of the universe cares for each one of us as if we were the only child He had.”

Our verses today are:
Romans 8:15-17 (NIV)

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

This is a powerful message to us today that we all need to take to heart. God is our Father. He is our Father above and beyond any earthly fathers we may, or may not, have in our lives. He loves us as if we are each His Only Child. That bears repeating, God loves us as our Father and loves each of us as if we are His only child. I would go as far to say that He sees each of us as “His favorite.” Of course, parents are not supposed to have favorites, but God is All-Powerful and He has love for each of us equally.

Focusing on God as our Father is an important part of our walk as Christians. It is important but that doesn’t make it easy. Because of our human nature and human fathers we often attribute traits of our earthly fathers to God. We are blessed if our earthly fathers have been wonderful examples of fatherly love to us. That often gives us a step up on seeing the love God has for us as our Father. However, when we have less than perfect earthly fathers, fathers that have abandoned us or fathers that just don’t walk in the ways of God it can build road blocks against seeing the love God has for us.

For example, if we have an angry father, prone to violent outbursts we can mistakenly associate that same trait with God. Or if we have a father that seems not to be interested in our lives we also mistakenly associate that with our heavenly Father. All of these mistakenly associated traits can keep us from a close relationship with God. He longs to be our One True Father and the one that we look to in life to guide us, comfort us, love us unconditionally and always protect us. God is always ALL of those things but if our earthly fathers have not been these things to us, it can be hard to recognize God’s traits as our Father. The only way to overcome association of our earthly father’s shortcomings with our heavenly Father is through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit floods us with the knowledge of our adoption into God’s family through Christ’s sacrifice. It is the Holy Spirit that gives us permission and encourages us to cry out to God and call Him our Daddy. That has been a hard thing for me to do in my Christian walk. It seems too intimate that I would be allowed to draw near to the God of the universe. But, I have seen God be my Daddy and comfort me in the way only a Father can comfort. He desires each of us to see the deep fatherly love He has for us and to walk in the truth that we ARE His children and we are indeed heirs to His Kingdom.

One quick note on “heirs to His Kingdom”. As you see in the Bible verses above, it says we have “adoption to sonship”. In the time period this was originally written “adoption” was a full acceptance to a family with ALL the rights of the other children. Meaning if there were other children and you were adopted, then suddenly you were entitled to the same rights (and responsibilities) of your siblings. There was no difference between you and the children already in the family. This means that God does indeed SEE us as sons and daughters with the full rights of inheritance of His Kingdom. Wow!

Friends, I encourage you to think about your relationship with God our Father. You may have a wonderful example, via your earthly father, and that is a true blessing. If you do not have that wonderful example, I encourage you to search the Word of God for the countless stories that are there to show you His love, not the least of which is the fact that He sent Jesus to die for us.

I wanted to point you to a wonderful song that can help remind you of how your Heavenly Daddy feels about you and how that defines who you are, period. Check out the song Good Good Father by Chris Tomlin.

May you feel the love of God our Father deep in your spirit, praise Him for His faithfulness to you and cry out in gratefulness to your Daddy today.

Blessings and love,
Pamela