The scene belonged on a funny Fathers Day card. As a dad muscled a lawn mower ahead of him with one hand, he expertly towed a childs wagon behind him with the other. In the wagon sat his three-year-old daughter, delighted at the noisy tour of their yard. This might not be the safest choice, but who says men cant multitask?
If you had a good dad, a scene like that can invoke fantastic memories. But for many, Dad is an incomplete concept. Where are we to turn if our fathers are gone, or if they fail us, or even if they wound us?
King David certainly had his shortcomings as a father, but he understood the paternal nature of God. A father to the fatherless, he wrote, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families (Ps. 68:56). The apostle Paul expanded on that idea: The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. Then, using the Aramaic word for fathera term young children would use for their dadPaul added, By him we cry, Abba, Father (Rom. 8:15). This is the same word Jesus used when He prayed in anguish to His Father the night He was betrayed (Mark 14:36).
What a privilege to come to God using the same intimate term for father that Jesus used! Our Abba Father welcomes into His family anyone who will turn to Him.
The Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Christ and is the source of our spiritual life (Rom. 8:914). He is the seal and guarantee (Eph. 1:1314) that we are Gods children (Rom. 8:1516; Gal. 4:5). As His children, we have a duty to the Father not to live according to the sinful nature (Rom. 8:12) but to put to death the misdeeds of the body (v. 13; Col. 3:511). We are to be led by the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:14; Gal. 5:1618) and to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). In the Spirit's power, Gods children display the characteristics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (vv. 2223).