Crying out to Abba (Casey Cronin)

I was driving north from Geneseo on Route 63 the other week, when just past the railroad overpass, I spotted a small lawn sign placed near the road’s edge. It was white, maybe plastic, about two feet square with printed green block letters that l said simply;

PLEASE GOD

It took me a moment to process those two words then to reflect on them as I drove on.

PLEASE GOD

Was this some sort of plea someone had placed - hoping for divine intervention for a crisis they were enduring? “Please God; only You can help me.” There were no other signs along the road to help me define its meaning.

Then I thought, perhaps it is more of a creative suggestion to those passing by – what would PLEASE GOD?

Is there something in my life that is hindering my relationship with Him?

We live by faith and not works, but if I could change something that would PLEASE GOD, what would l that be?

Forgive someone a long ago slight? Pray more for others than my own needs? Be more charitable? Try to be a bolder ambassador for Christ? Try to be more of a Tigger than an Eeyore (ask my wife)?

So what do you think the meaning behind that little lawn sign is? It’s a pretty personal question and I’ll let you wrestle with it for a while. I thank God for creative people who can combine two words together to get the gray matter atop our shoulders working.

PLEASE GOD

How reassuring it is to be confident in a Father who hears our please. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” (Romans 8:26, 27)

What a joy it is to cry out as sons and daughters; “Abba, Father!”

And this joy should compel us to look deeply within and contemplate how we can PLEASE GOD.