Although we were created to be in a deep intimate personal relationship with God, our relationship with our Father was broken and we were separated from our Him when Adam and Eve sinned and brought the world into catastrophe. For centuries God tutored us through His series of covenants. But we just kept misunderstanding what God wanted (see Micah 6:6-8) and we struggled with the question of “Why can’t we walk humbly with God?” Yet, through it all, the Bible teaches us over and over again that our Abba Father’s greatest desire continued to be for Him to walk and talk with His children. However, despite God’s best efforts to restore what was broken by sin, His children continued to reject Him, to run from Him, and hide from His presence because of their disobedience.

Therefore, our Abba Father sent His Son Jesus into this world to physically walk and talk to us. Jesus, sent from our Abba Father, came to show us the depth of our Abba’s love, to show us what walking humbly with God looks like and to call us to be His friends. But, the world rejected Him, they mocked Him, despised Him, arrested Him, condemned Him to death and they crucified Him! However, our hope comes in knowing that, for “12 all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, to all who continue to respond to His love and to receive Him, God gave/God still gives the right to become children of God.

So, “How do we seek an Abba experience with God?” The answer is through prayer. Prayer is our time to walk and talk with God, in the cool of the day and in the heat of the fire. However, often times we feel inadequate to take our worries, our struggles, our pain, and our sins to Jesus in prayer. There are times when walking and talking with God through prayer is hard because Satan, our enemy comes against us and the world convinces us that if God really knew who we are, He would reject us in an instant. It is hard to pray because of the part of us, deep down inside that says, “I have to hide from God, because if He truly knew who I am, if God really knew what I was like deep down inside where the demons live, then there is no way God would/God could ever love me.

Yet, that is exactly what we are supposed to do. The Bible tells us the disciples struggled to pray and when they did, they went to Jesus and asked, “Lord teach us to pray.” When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray He gave them a memorable, portable prayer they could take with them everywhere they went. If we take the Lord’s Prayer and create a distilled down version that is easy to remember, it would begin with “Father, You are good.”

It would be a prayer we can use in the afternoon when we pause to each lunch and cry out, “Jesus, I need Your help.” If we prayed the way Jesus taught us to pray, as we walk down the hallways of our office or school we would pray, “Jesus Heal me and forgive me.” In the simple conversations we have with Jesus throughout the day we would cry out, “Abba, they need Your help just like I need You.” If we stopped running away from God and ran to Him instead we could come to the end of our day and pray, “Thank You Jesus for all You did for me today.” as we close our eyes saying…In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

My dear friends in Christ, you and I were created to pray, designed by our Abba to lift our arms in the air and talk with Him. You and I who were 14…led by the Spirit of God to responded to the love of God and the wooing of our Abba and we are children of God! Children of God who need to stop living in fear of rejection by our Abba who loves us and start living in the power of faith, for the Holy Spirit brought about our adoption to sonship with our Abba and He delights in lavishing His love upon us. Children of God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit are able to cry out in prayer, “Abba Father.”