Dad...
Did you ever stop to consider the way various people address God? I have been around some pretty "staunchly" religious people who continually refer to him as "heavenly father" or "God Almighty". Yes, he is both, but these terms actually describe a kind of formal and rigid relationship with God. If I had gone around responding to my dad with "Yes, father" all the time, it would have been like I was saying, "Sir, yes, sir!" I would have been treating him merely as an authority figure in my life much in the same way I treated my commanding officer in the military! Indeed, God is the authority over my life, but I don't want to approach him as the "big authority in the sky" kind of God. I think God intends for us to have a more intimate, or close relationship with him. He doesn't want us to treat him like our "bestie", but I do think he wants us to be comfortable calling him "Abba" (daddy). ...