Shared during the Gathering on Father’s Day by Rich McDaniel.
“Jesus did something that was unprecedented in history—because he talked to the Father in heaven with a term of endearment. You know what it was? It was Abba.”
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For all the fathers, aspiring daddies, fill-in daddies, grandfathers, uncles:
Abba, we love you and we need you. We stand before you here in this moment as your children. We are aware of your love and we’re amazed by it, we’re astounded by it, we don’t know how to process it.
But Lord we also stand before you as daddies, as padres, as papas, who fervently love our little ones, our children, whom we brought into the world. And Lord we need you. Abba, we need your help. So we pray for this. We pray, Lord, and we commit as we pray that we surrender ourselves right here. We surrender our will. And we pray that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that your will be done on earth in me as it is in heaven. That begins here and now. We pray that you would take us and use us.
And Lord, we draw near to you as James said, draw near to me and I will draw near to you. So we are drawing near, we choose, we resolve, we commit, we purposely step into, this drawing near to you. That we might live in your kingdom, in your presence. That’s what we pray for. We want to live in your presence. And Lord as we seek to do that, we pray that you would move us from this place of awareness, and that that awareness would turn to conversation, and the conversation would turn to communion, and the communion would turn to union, which is that which you call us to. For we realize, Lord, that the best thing we can do for our children is to be like you, is to be transformed, and to live the life of faith with integrity in their eyes. We pray for that.
Abba, we need you as well for our children. There are so many things in their lives that we simply cannot touch or influence. And so we pray, Lord, that you would protect them, hedge them in from the power of evil, which is all around them in a confused and distracted and often evil world. We pray, Lord, that you would protect them.
And we pray, Lord, that you would nurture them. That in their life experience, that you would bring them to the point where they can see you, and then know you, and then love you. We pray, Lord, that you would nurture them.
And, Lord, as they go through life with you in your presence, we pray that you would bring them peace, not the peace of the world, but your peace. The peace that is not a freedom from trials because trials are needed for character, but we pray that you would give them that sense of your presence in trials, because that’s what gives us ultimate peace.
And we pray as well, Lord, that you would give them joy. We pray for more than happiness, because happiness comes and goes with circumstance, but joy is integral to who we are in our spirits, and the knowledge that you are with us and for us and that nothing can be against us in that context. So we pray for their joy, for joyfulness.
And so, Lord, we pray all these things as we commit ourselves and then our children into your hands. May it be so. For it is in the name of Christ, the Messiah, our Lord and Savior that we pray. Amen.