Name Calling

Can’t explain it, but I was fairly confident my children would be boys. Mr. Bill wanted boys, I guess, to dress in camouflage.  He wouldn’t have both feet in the door before one of his boys was suggesting how they could spend the remaining daylight hours with rod and reel or ball and glove.  Bill could usually predict the suggestion from each child on any given day!  That otherwise sweet sound of "Dad" could easily send a tired, stressed, over-worked, grown man into neurotic spasms at the end of a long, hot, ten-hour workday.  The best I could do was smile and remind "Dad" how much he wanted boys, how excited he was at their birth, and how eager he was to get on with all the "Dad stuff."

There's One who never tires of hearing His name called ... Almighty God!  He even put His name in the hearts of His children, just so we could call His Name.  "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out 'Abba, Father!" (Galatians 4:6)  Our Heavenly Father yearns for us to call His name ... Abba (meaning "Daddy").  When we are born-again, God puts within us His Spirit.  He’s no longer a stranger to our hearts, but His Spirit within makes us to know God as ... "Daddy."  We are His adopted children ... heirs to all His goodness. You see, He’s there all the time just waiting for us to bring Him our weariness, anxiety, confusion, grief, hurt, anger, desperation, frustration, helplessness, weakness, addiction, pain.  “Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” (Psalm 107:8) Although we threatened to change our “names,” Mr. Bill and I fondly recall those little boy voices of long ago.  God NEVER tires of hearing us call His Name; call on Him early and often each day!