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'When you have found a prayer place,
remember that you are praying to a Father who loves you, Jesus seems
to say: "Our Father in heaven
....." (Mattew
6:9)
Whenever Jesus
prayed, he called God ' Father'.
The word Jesus
uses for 'Father ' is 'Abba' --'Daddy' --the first word a child learns
to say. A word born of trust.
Two children
in the Middle East helped me to understand what Jesus meant when he encouraged
us to pray in this way. One was a little boy on a bus.
The little boy
was sitting on his father's lap. The bus was crowded and it was late. The
child was obviously very tired. After we had travelled for a few miles,
the boy looked into his father's face, stroked his beard lovingly, whispered
the word 'Abba!' several times, then placed his head on his
father's chest and fell fast asleep. While his son slept, the father looked
at him with love in his eyes.
The other was
a small child by a swimming pool. He was being helped into the water by
his big sisters but his face said: 'I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
' Then a man appeared. 'Abba! Abba!' the boy called. The child's father
went to him. They played in the pool together and enjoyed their swim. The
boy's fear left him. He now showed no signs of crying, only of laughing.
While Abba was near, he was happy.
That 's the
kind of love and trust Jesus wants us to have in our Heavenly Father,'
I thought.