A Story of Love, Grandkids, and a New Name for God

Just another family gathering around our big dining table? Not even close.

My daughter encouraged her son to go ahead and hand me the paper he’d recently written for a school assignment. The teacher had instructed the class to write a short paper on their favorite activity. According to my daughter, my grandson didn’t think long about the topic because he immediately knew his favorite activity—“helping Pop with projects on his property.”

From the time he could lift a hammer, I included my “grand” in every project. He helped me build the toolshed, the pool deck, the chicken coop, and the firewood shed. When he was ten, I taught him how to drive the little John Deere tractor, so he could help me move compost, gravel, and wood. Now, as a young teenager, he’s adept with a chainsaw, nail gun, leaf blower, and every other tool in the shed.

That little title, “Pop,” carries profound meaning for me. It speaks of warmth, safety, intimacy, trust, deep affection, and a unique form of camaraderie.

My grandkids all call me “Pop”, which eventually led me to a probing question: How do I address God?

Do I use relationally intimate terms of endearment?

Is it more proper to use formal religious titles?

Our concept of God pretty much determines what we call him. The religious environment in which I grew up had a relatively limited range of tags for the Creator.

One of several reformative processes over the past few years has been the removal of all sense of distance between me and God. I’m not afraid of Him anymore. I’ve stopped viewing Him as punitive, disappointed, demanding, distant, frowning, or frustrated. This has changed how I address Him.

It seems to me that I am in good company. In Mark 14:36, Jesus referred to God as Abba. Paul does the same in Romans 8:15. It is more than the childlike “Daddy,” or “Papa”. It is a deeply personal, relational, affectionate “Father”—a word that breaks through formality into closeness.

A statement I often make to my grandchildren is, “I love you more than life.” And if this fickle, imperfect, flawed old guy can be so madly in love with his grandkids, how much more must Abba love me?

I delight in our wrestling matches, shared projects, vacations, and every tiny accomplishment of my grandkids. Why wouldn’t Father delight infinitely more in me? Every now and then, during our conversations, the terms "Dad", or "Pop" slip from my lips. Does He balk when that happens?

I wonder.