More from Henri Nouwen:
Empowered to Call God "Abba"
Calling God "Abba, Father" is different from giving God a familiar name. Calling God "Abba" is entering into the same intimate, fearless, trusting, and empowering relationship with God that Jesus had. That relationship is called Spirit, and that Spirit is given to us by Jesus and enables us to cry out with him, "Abba, Father.
"Calling God "Abba, Father" (see Roman 8:15; Galatians 4:6) is a cry of the heart, a prayer welling up from our innermost beings. It has nothing do with naming God but everything to do with claiming God as the source of who we are. This claim does not come from any sudden insight or acquired conviction; it is the claim that the Spirit of Jesus makes in communion with our spirits. It is the claim of love.
Monday, June 11, 2007
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2 comments:
Ha, I first read this post thinking it was your words... I was like "wow, this girl can write" :)...
that whole thing about Abba as the source of who we are is huge... Thanks for posting that today. Refreshing.
yeah... well... maybe oneday I'll write like this... someone told me once that they saw me writing Nouwen/Brennan Manning/Yancey type stuff in the future!
But yeah... the whole Abba thing has become huge in my life over the past year, an understanding of who I am because of who He is, so I couldn't help but post it when it arrived in my email this morning.
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