Start Praying Like a Child: "Our Father"

What word immediately comes to mind when you think of God? What is the first word you think of when you consider your relationship to God?

Believe it or not, the answers you give to the questions above have enormous significance in your life. “Our image of God is one of the most, if not the most, important aspects of the spiritual life. Our God-image shapes and colors everything about our personal spirituality.”[1]

If we think of God primarily as Creator we will think of ourselves primarily as a creature. If our first thought of God is that of Master, then our first thought concerning our relationship to God will be that of a servant. If King has priority, then subject is the best self-description. If Lawgiver, then lawkeeper (or lawbreaker!) defines our relationship to God.

God is Creator, Lord, King, and Lawgiver. But we can know God as all these things (and more) without really knowing if God truly loves us. God may possess infinite power, amazing abilities, and perfect morals, but none of these characteristics provide us with assurance that God is personally concerned for us.

How can we know the Creator, Lord, King, and Lawgiver cares for us? Because God is, first and foremost, our Father. “[T]his one word ‘Father,’ together with ‘Our,” contain all these concepts [Creator, Lord, King, Lawgiver] yet at the same time reveals them as intimacy, as love, as a unique, unrepeatable and joyful union.”[2]

It is the experience of personal love as from a father to a child that is at the heart of our relationship with God. The fatherhood of God assures us that all God’s power is directed toward our good in intimate, familial, faithful love.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to think of God primarily as Father, ourselves as children, and others as members of God’s family. This is one great benefit of regularly praying the Lord’s Prayer: it transforms our view of God, self, and others. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he could have used any number of titles and names to address God, but he chose “Father.” Everything else in the Lord’s Prayer proceeds from this fundamental relationship.

To Whom We Pray – “Father in Heaven”

To the first-century Jew, fatherhood primarily denoted a strong provider upon whom children could depend. Jesus incorporated and expanded upon this by speaking to God as his Father – his Abba. This was undeniably Jesus’ favorite word of divine address.

Speaking of God as Father was not entirely unknown in ancient Israel. The title was first used to describe God’s actions in the Exodus: “Israel is my son, my firstborn” (Exodus 4:22). Yet, Jesus’ use of Abba was unique. In his cultural setting, it contained offense.

For “Abba” is not the most precise form of the word for “Father,” but is presumably the baby talk of a child, containing all the nearness, affection, and love in which we do not designate a person as father but in which the child addresses its father. “Abba” – that was the expression heard from the lips of children in the secular language of every day. Jesus had the audacity to speak of God and to God in such a way that to pious ears it sounded offensive, disrespectful, worldly.[3]

“In a culture that wouldn’t even speak God’s name, calling God Abba was nearly blasphemy. Indeed, taking such liberties was one of the reasons Jesus was crucified.”[4]

Jesus’ use of Abba was born from his experience of God. The best word he could use to describe the filial tenderness he received and the faithful love it provoked was Father. It is Jesus’ experience of God that forms the basis for our spirituality. He invites us to pattern our prayers after his and approach God as our Abba. “Like a new parent contemplating a first-born, Yahweh’s gaze was riveted upon Jesus and, Jesus insisted, upon each one of us. That experience of God – and Jesus’ trust in it – would subsequently shape his entire life.”[5] Likewise, it is to shape our entire lives as well. By teaching us to approach God as Father, Jesus invites us to share the immediacy, familiarity, and mutual love he shares with his Abba.

Is “Father” Outdated?

Some have argued that Father is outdated in our contemporary world. They find the term insensitive to those who lack a positive perspective of fatherhood. In our culture, it is true that “for a growing number of people, father has never meant provider, teacher, or guardian. It has meant only an aching absence – or an abusive presence.”[6]

It is vital that we remain sensitive to our contemporary context. However, we can do this without losing the precious name our Lord taught us. But in order to do so, we must patiently and carefully address contemporary concerns.

God is unlike any father that has ever lived because God is a “perfect father.” In thinking about the fatherhood of God, we must not think from earth to heaven – imposing our human limitations and defects upon God – but from heaven to earth. Every human father, in spite of the best intentions, fails in some way (and usually, in many ways) of being the perfect father. Often, fathers either do not know what to do, or they don’t have the ability to carry through on what they know to do. God is different. “Unlike earthly fathers, He always has the best intentions for His children, and He always has the ability to carry them out.”[7]

God is not simply an earthly father; he is our “heavenly Father” – “Our Father who art in heaven.” “In heaven” draws attention not to God’s location but to God’s transcendence over all creation. As “heavenly Father” God transcends every category of this created world. God is unspeakably transcendent – a Father unlike any human father because he is a Father above all human fathers.

Jesus subversively undermined his culture’s view of fatherhood by speaking of God’s fatherhood in non-traditional ways. Again and again, he pictured God as a patriarch who does not act in expected patriarchal ways. For Jesus, God is a non-patriarchal patriarch. God is not an oppressive authoritarian but a good giver of gifts (Matthew 7:7-11) who welcomes rather than disowns prodigals. “This Father who meets us nonjudgmentally is not an extension of the patriarchal and authoritarian mentality and order, but a challenge to it.”[8] The “prodigal father” breaks social conventions and appears absurd in order to love his children. By teaching of fatherhood in this way, Jesus redefined patriarchy.

Finally, an emphasis on God as Father has nothing to do with gender. God is above gender. Father does not draw attention to God’s gender but to the intimate relationship God the Father and Jesus the Son share. It is impossible to say “Father” without remembering the “Son.” Relationship, not gender, is what is important.

Throughout the Sacred Scriptures, God is presented as the perfection of parental roles – whether male or female. The prophet Isaiah wrote of God’s motherly affection: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15). “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you” (Is. 66:13). The Apostle Paul described his parental role in ministry in both feminine and masculine ways: “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for his own children… we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children.” (1 Thessalonians 2:7, 11)

God is the perfect parent – our motherly Father. God is the perfect expression of both feminine and masculine characteristics – strong and tender, loving and compassionate, indulgent and protective. “For Jesus, God was the father we cry out for when we awake in the darkness, in the grip of a nightmare. God was the mother who dries our tears and kisses away our pain when we fall and skin our knee. God was a parent – intimate, loving, and committed.”[9]

The name, Father, is too precious to lose. Those with bad experiences related to their fathers identify their experiences as “bad” because they contrast them with an ideal. They know what they needed, even if they were not given it. God is the perfect parent they long for. Certainly, we must remove the patriarchal and gender baggage if this proves offensive, but we must not lose the name. No matter how much we may have been hurt by our fathers, we desperately need our fathers. Indeed, our great hurt reveals how important they truly are to us. Thankfully, no matter how bad our experience, our Father – the perfect Parent – will never fail to be anything but good, loving, and faithful. [10]

We Who Pray – “Children”

God’s fatherhood is expressed in different ways. God is the Father of all in respect of creation. God is the Father of the only begotten Son through eternal generation. God is the Father of all Christians through the regenerating work of the Spirit.

Jesus is unique – the only begotten Son of God. Through identification with Jesus we are begotten of the Spirit and adopted into the family of God. We pray, not as creatures, slaves, criminals (or even pardoned criminals) but as dear children. The Father has adopted us into his family through the Son and in the Spirit. Through God’s work of grace, we are now “sons in the Son.”

As such, we are each individually, “the beloved.” This is the deepest truth about ourselves. We are ultimately not what we do, what we have, or what others think of us. We are God’s beloved, adored from eternity, standing directly under the steady gaze of God’s love. Just as little children, whether awake or asleep, are equally dear to their parents, so we, no matter whether we are active or inactive, are recipients of divine affection.

Such is the life of prayer: to bask in the consciousness of Abba’s continual gaze. Prayer is not actively searching for God. It is discovering that I have already been found by God. It is becoming aware of the fact that at every moment of my existence Abba is already contemplating me.[11]

God’s love is unspeakably great. It has no limits. Our perfect Parent loves us completely, purely, unconditionally, and unendingly.

One of the keys to real religious experience is the shattering realization that no matter how hateful we are to ourselves, we are not hateful to God… We need to see good in ourselves in order to love ourselves. He does not. He loves us not because we are good, but because He is.[12]

This truth must rule our lives. The Lord’s Prayer presses it into us! Every time we pray this prayer, we are called to remember to whom we pray, and, even more, what this reveals about us. We are eternally cradled in the strong and tender arms of our motherly Father who holds us tight in a loving embrace. This is not simply true; it is the truth of the cosmos – the most important reality in our lives. Thomas Merton put it this way: “one of the most important tasks in the spiritual life is to experience God’s love ‘not as an abstraction, but as a reality, as the reality’”[13]

“We, like Jesus, are first and foremost the beloved. That awareness should transform us, like Jesus, into lovers.”[14] The Lord’s Prayer confronts us with this truth from its opening words. Our Lord was aware that we would not have the capacity to love God as we should unless we were confident of God’s love for us. With knowledge that we are beloved, we then are capable of loving God in return. “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

With Whom We Pray – “Our”

There is no “I” or “me” in the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer never offers us an opportunity to pray alone or simply on our own behalf. Every time we pray, we are forced to remember God’s other children. We pray to the Father as dearly beloved children, along with all the other children of God throughout the world. We pray as “we” and “us,” not as “I” and “me.”

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we join in with the millions (perhaps billions) throughout recorded history who have made this prayer their own. From the earliest days of the church, this pray has experienced widespread use (as it should, considering the authority of the One who gave it to us).

We also join in with the billions around the globe who approach God the Father through God the Son by the grace of God the Spirit. As St. Cyprian said, “Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one.”[15] Therefore, we “cannot pray to ‘our’ Father without bringing before him all those for whom he gave his beloved Son. God’s love has no bounds, neither should our prayer.”[16]

We are one with all other Christians, regardless of the label by which we identify them – whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Mainline, Progressive, Conservative, Liberal, Postmodern, Young, Old, Eastern, Western, Liturgical, Free-flowing, Pentecostal, Non-Pentecostal, Calvinist, Arminian, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

We expend much energy underscoring our differences. With one prayer (the Lord’s Prayer) and one word (“Our”) we draw together in one Spirit with one voice to one God. Though we may argue with other groups like spoiled toddlers, (“He’s my daddy!” “No! He’s my daddy!”) the fact is that God loves us all. And “God, like any good father, doesn’t play favorites.”[17]

When we pray to God the Father, we pray as one Family – regardless of the labels we’ve created. In other words, to have God as Father is to have the Church as one’s family! And we speak on behalf of the Family every time we come to the Father.

The mystery deepens when we realize the most profound and humbling truth about prayer. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we also pray with Jesus and the Spirit. Through the Lord’s Prayer, we enter into the heart of the conversation between the Persons of the Trinity. We pray “with” Jesus “to” our Abba “through” the enabling power of the Spirit.

Scripture bears this out. We would not have the confidence to pray this prayer if not for our Lord’s teaching and example. We would not have an interest in praying this prayer if not for the Spirit’s promptings. It is because of the work of the Son and the Spirit that we approach God as Father.

But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:4-7; cf. Romans 8:14-17)

When we pray, “Abba, Father” we can be assured that we have the presence of the Holy Spirit and the pleasure of God the Son. The deepest way to pray “in the name of Jesus” is to pray the prayer he taught us – a prayer rooted in his deep Father/Son relationship with God.

A Wild Ride with Daddy

Like a child, it will take our entire life to understand what these words really mean. It will take a lifetime of calling upon our “Abba, Father” in order to learn how deep, wide, strong, and unfailing is God’s love to us.

My youngest child, Adam, is 20 months old. He absolutely loves for me to take him in my arms and do crazy things with him. I swing him around. I twirl him in the air. I plunge him toward the ground. I hold him upside-down. With rare exception he delights in everything I do. Occasionally, he experiences a moment of fright, but he is quickly relieved when he realizes that he remains safe in daddy’s arms.

Adam can enjoy these daring feats, not because he has great knowledge of physics, or has calculated my strength or endurance levels. No, he abandons himself to my care, even though it sends him wildly careening through the air, because he has full confidence that he will be safe in his daddy’s arms. He knows I am (relatively speaking) greater than him in size, knowledge, and strength, and, because he knows I love him, he trusts himself to my care, falls into my arms, and enjoys the ride, no matter how crazy things get.

As a child, it is easy to jump into daddy’s arms and experience the thrills of being thrashed about. As we age, it becomes increasingly difficult to do this. Yet, the entire course of our lives involves learning to fully and utterly abandon ourselves to our heavenly Father, our Abba. No matter how long we evade it, we will finally be forced to abandon ourselves into our Father’s arms. If nothing else, the experience of death will demand that we surrender all control. At that time, our only confidence will be the everlasting arms of the Father.

This was Jesus’ experience on the cross. After being violently tossed about he experienced a momentary loss of the Father’s care. Like a little child who has had too much, he became overwhelmed and frightened. He cried out, “My God, why have you forgotten me?” And yet, in the end, his final prayer was, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.” In the end, he knew whose arms carried him.

The Lord’s Prayer trains us each day toward this end. As beloved children, we can rest in the arms of God without demanding to know everything. It simply makes sense to realize that our Father knows much more than we do. We can rest in his care even when we are unsure of what’s happening around us.

Praying the Lord’s Prayer regularly transforms our view of God, self, and others. Through continual use, we learn to think of God primarily as Father, ourselves as children, and others as members of God’s family. This is a much needed corrective to our stern views of God, self, and others. We will never advance beyond this need, for it is the source and goal of our relationship with God. No matter how mature we become we will always need to pray like a child.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2005