What are you afraid of?

I told you. The Lord said "Enough with your silly self, girl". Ok, y'all know what I mean.

I haven't blogged much lately about the Romans study with Beth Moore because, frankly, I've been a tad behind. With preparing for my Bible study and doing my study with Sunday school plus my quiet time it's been tough to find time for it all. I really wish I could get paid to study the Word 'cause I could make it my full time job! LOVE IT! But today I listened to one of the lessons and child, let me tell you that y'all need to be listening to it. WHEW!!!

So she's been on Romans chapter 8 for a couple of weeks and we've only made it to verses 15 and 16. "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." Like I said WHEW!! I think this is especially tender to my heart as my sweet friends got to bring home their adopted son recently so being adopted as God's child has been "lived out" for me. I mean, could you write a book on these 2 verses or what?

My favorite line in these verses is "by him we cry, 'Abba, Father'." Beth talked about how Paul was so careful to use both a Hebrew and a Greek word here which we could translate into "Daddy - dear Daddy". She talked about her girls calling Keith a special name and when he heard it he knew that no matter their age they needed their daddy to come be big in their lives. Do you just love that?! Since my earthly dad is gone, I know exactly how that feels. I know that there have been so many times in my life when I've picked up the phone or walked out to his shed and said "Daddy" and he knew he'd better listen up. Most times I just called him Dad but when I said "Daddy" he knew. Sometimes that was all I'd have to say. "Daddy" and he'd just take me in his arms or fix whatever was broken.

Isn't that just what our Heavenly Father does? We cry out to Him "Daddy, Dear Daddy" and He comes and wraps His arms around us and fixes our broken hearts. His Spirit lives in us every day so we have NO reason to be a slave to fear.

Abba, Father, thank you for hearing my cries. Thank you for being there for me even when I didn't ask you to. Thank you for loving me enough to pay the price so that I could be adopted into your family! Oh how I love you, Daddy Dear Daddy!!