My son, Aaron, was in the third or fourth grade when his teacher suggested to the class that they invite their parents to give short talks about their jobs for “career day.”
At that time, I had written and published four or five books and had been a full-time writer for a year or two. I worked from home. Aaron was accustomed to seeing me at my desk, on my primitive laptop computer, for hours at a time.
When the teacher made her way around the room and got to Aaron, she asked, “Aaron, what does your father do for a living?”
Aaron shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “He just plays on the computer all day.”
If pressed, I imagine Aaron could have given a little more insight into his father’s livelihood. After all, he knew about the books I had produced—he had even read one or two.
But, while some people attached a certain glamour or mystique to being an “author,” there was never anything impressive or sensational about it—or about me—to Aaron.
He saw me every day. We tossed baseballs to each other. We wrestled on the floor. We sang “The Simpsons Sing the Blues” in the car together. He didn’t attach labels such as “professional writer “or “author” or “speaker” to me. I was just “Dad.”
Believe it or not, that is the sort of attitude Jesus urged on his followers when we pray. The first word Jesus said on the subject of prayer was the word, “Father.” Literally.
In both Greek and Aramaic, the word that begins the prayer we commonly call “The Lord’s Prayer” is “Father.” Jesus was not the first person in history (even in Judaism) to address God as Father, but he clearly surprised his contemporaries not only with the relationship he claimed with his Father but also with the relationship he urged his followers to claim.
It is impossible to overemphasize how important this is to the prayer. It may be the most important thing Jesus taught about prayer. In that single word he conveyed a number of deep and impactful truths.
1) When we say “Father,” we assume a relationship.
The use of the word, “Father,” in prayer assumes a relationship. As the missionary and evangelist E. Stanley Jones wrote, “The first thing in prayer is to get God. If you get Him, everything else follows. Allow God to get at you, to invade you, to take possession of you” (quoted by Larry Crabb in The Papa Prayer (Nashville: Integrity Publishers, 2006), 30).
Prayer begins there. Theologian N. T. Wright says, “As soon as one becomes a Christian, he or she can and must say, ‘Our Father’; that is one of the marks of grace, one of the first signs of faith” (N. T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 12). No wonder Jesus made “Father” the first word in the prayer he modeled for his followers. With that word, he said, in effect, “Pray relationally.”
2) When we say “Father,” we avail ourselves of intimacy.
No one would have argued if Jesus had begun his model prayer differently. He could have said, “When you pray, say, ‘Master…’” Or “Say, ‘Lord…’” Or “King…” None of those would have been inappropriate then, and none are inappropriate now.
But Jesus struck a much more intimate tone. He encouraged a prayer posture that is less like a subject approaching a king and more like a child climbing into a father’s lap.
My daughter, Aubrey, is a beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished woman. She is a married woman and a mother of three children. She refers to me as her “father,” of course. But there are times—precious times—when she, grown woman that she is, still calls me “Daddy” (and not always when she wants a favor). It never fails to warm my heart and, yes, make me even more willing than ever to make her dreams come true.
According to Jesus, you can claim that degree of intimacy with God.
3) When we say “Father,” we accept an apprenticeship.
In Jesus’ day, sons and daughters did whatever their parents did. If your father was a stonecutter, you became his apprentice and then his partner, until one day you took over the business. And then your son became your apprentice. And so it went.
So, when Jesus told his followers to relate to God as a father, he said it in that context. And they probably understood it in that context. So when you and I say, “Father,” we should understand that we are accepting an apprenticeship.
To quote N. T. Wright again, “Saying ‘our father’ isn’t just the boldness, the sheer cheek, of walking into the presence of the living and almighty God and saying, ‘Hi, Dad.’ It is the boldness, the sheer total risk, of saying quietly, ‘Please may I, too, be considered an apprentice son’” (pp. 18-20).
Prayer, as Jesus taught it, is relational. It is intimate. And it is an acceptance of apprenticeship to the Father. So when you pray, do as Jesus said. Say, “Father.” Or “Abba,” “Papa,” even “Daddy.”
Adapted from The Red Letter Prayer Life by Bob Hostetler (Barbour Publishers).
