S18P1 – The Characters of God: our Father

Matt. 6:9
This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…”

When Jesus instructs us on how to pray, He begins with something incredible. There are a thousand ways to describe God. He is Lord, He is King, He is The Almighty, He is omnipotent and omniscient. God is perfectly pure and holy. He lacks nothing and is capable of all. Yet, of all the ways human words can try to express the magnificence of God, Jesus tells us to address him simply as Father. Jesus is telling us here that our approach in prayer to God is that of a child asking of his parent. This, my friends, is amazing.

The parent-child relationship is something rather intimate. The child can do nothing to chase away the father’s love, and the father would give anything to care for his child. This is a relationship of closeness, one in which the child can rely on the father to be there without wavering. The ideal is that the father can address every one of that child’s needs. And while the father has authority to rule over that child, his rule is for the child’s benefit. The child fears his father out of respect, not terror. Imagine that the perfect One who created the universe and holds it in his hand desires to fill that role in our lives. He wants to be our daddy.

Our God is all things. He is mighty yet gentle, beyond our understanding yet available for relationship, larger than the physical world we know yet residing within us. When we approach him in prayer, He is our Father. He desires to care for his children as we would expect a father to do. Lowly as we are, He loves to hear our prayers, share our secrets and come to our aid. Father, thank You for holding that role in our lives, inviting us into your holy family and allowing us to be called by your name, standing steadfast and confident in You.