The "Abba" Cry

Saturday afternoon I had one of those days where I was really sick with a cold and pretty much made a permanent home on the couch for the day. Later in the day I was flipping through the channels on the TV and I found a news coverage called “Children for Sale”. In my curiosity I flipped to the channel and for the next hour I watched a story I will never forget. The show was actually a follow up of an inside look at human trafficking in Cambodia that MSNBC had done back in 2003. The show talked about changes that had been made and hadn’t been made since then. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I mean I’m not oblivious that human trafficking takes place. I’ve heard speakers talk about it, I’ve heard mentions of it on the news, and I think I even watched a Lifetime movie on it once. But nothing, absolutely nothing compares to seeing it from a child’s perspective. In this show they had a human rights investigator go undercover to these places in Cambodia in an effort to expose the people behind the movement. When the man would walk inside these little girls (between 5 and 15) would go up to him and offer themselves, because this is what they are trained to do. I was broken hearted by the fact that these little girls didn’t even see anything wrong with this anymore. Just as heartbreaking was the fact that the person who was keeping care of them was a lady in her 30s. I guess I had always imagined that it would be some weird older man but never a lady like this, never someone who could have been one of the girl’s moms. However, the story does get better. Later on in the show the government arrested several of the people running the program and took the little girls away. They put these girls in safe houses where they would be loved and nurtured by people who cared for them. Of course that was wonderful that they saved them but the story didn’t stop there. As they are taking these girls away some of them start screaming and crying. They didn’t want to leave. This was all they had known for a greater part of their life and they didn’t understand that they were going to something better. In short they didn’t realize what they were being saved from.

Immediately I was so convicted about my own relationship with Christ. Do I really and truly realize what I am saved from? Do I understand what I am being blessed with? Did I react to God, when first saved, as one of these young girls? Screaming and crying for my former life? It left me praying and thanking God for how he orchestrates His love to be revealed to me in the correct time. Over the past few days I had been reading Adopted for Life By Dr. Russell Moore and there was a story in there that God would use to touch my heart during this TV segment. Dr. Moore was telling a discription about the “Abba” cry.

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."

Romans 8:15

If you’ve grown up in the church like I did then you’ve probably heard some preacher or teacher speak on this verse. You’ve probably heard how it means “dada” or “daddy” but in the book Dr. Moore explains how that is the watered down version. He explains that this “Abba” is the same word that Christ uses in the garden before going to the cross (Mark 14:36). Before having this explained to me I originally thought that Christ is praying to His Daddy because He was scared of what He was about to face. I thought He was scared because He knew He was going to be beaten, bruised, pierced, and flogged. However, recently I heard a message by David Platt that completely changed that idea. Why would Jesus be scared of these earthly pains? We have countless examples of Christians being crucified and martyred for their faith that weren’t scared. Some sang while being tortured, some prayed for their captors while being beaten, and some even thanked their arrestors while being lead away. Why would Jesus be more cowardly than these? Then He explained that wasn’t the reason. Jesus was crying “Abba” because He could see the intensity of the sin He was about to face. He could see what sin and Hell really looked like and realized He had to go there and back for us. In Christ realizing the intensity of our sin that He had to face He desperately cried out “Abba” with not a sweet innocent cry but a heart wrenching plea. Russell Moore explains it as this “The Abba cry is a scream. It’s less the sound of a baby giggling up into his fathers face and more the sound of a child screaming ‘Daddy’ as his face is being ripped apart by a rabid bulldog.” Wow. That is the high pitched, scared to death scream. That is a scream where you look at Hell and see where you should be going and cry out “Abba” save me! It’s a scream your soul probably screamed before you became a Christian because before that you didn’t know where you would be going if you died tonight. However, before to often I focus less on crying “Abba” and more on crying out for the comfort of the familiar.

This cry for comfort is the same scream I heard these little girls scream. They were screaming for someone to save them because they didn’t know where they were going. Even as they were being taken away and told they were going to a better place they didn’t understand it. They would rather stay in the filthiness of where they were because they knew what to expect there. They had no idea how much better off they would be. That is the scream I know I’ve cried to God several times in my life. The scream of “but I know this, I’m comfortable here, it may not be your best but I know what to expect”. It’s a cry that I would rather be left in my comfort than go in faith with Him. Fortunately though, like a parent who truly loves this child for all their worth He picks us up and carries us with Him to a place where we look back and see that everything else was like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). It is moments like today when God reveals a portion of how much He loves me that challenges me so much. Times like this I look at my life and realize all the pain and sorrow I’ve caused Him and everything He did and still does for me and I wonder how I was ever so lukewarm in my walk. If I truly grasp His love like this how can I not give up everything to follow after Him? How can I not do everything to bring Him the most glory in every moment of my life? I know that it will be difficult. I know others won’t understand how I can give up all security and protection for Him. But I also know that one day I will stand before God and cry out “Abba” with every ounce of my being and I can only hope that He will look back at me and say “well done my good and faithful servant”.