He gives his beloved, Rest.
Sleep is for more than just recovery.
For God it is a promise fulfilled to his people, a place to meet us in dreams beyond the limits of our understanding. For many of us, however, it is a time of restlessness and turmoil. It is a time where minds race and hearts start to filter through the events of our days. Where peace is often nowhere to be found.
Peace is not an element though, it is a person: Jesus.
Abba God, our good father
Be with us as we rest.
Let your kingdom be established in our dreams
Just like you build it while we’re awake
Holy Spirit,
We give you our nights, just like our days
We welcome your presence and give you honor
You have our attention
We love you, King Jesus.
Amen.
Abba’s World is an app, developed to directly address restless minds and sleepless nights. It’s full of Biblically based stories with endearing, relatable characters, calming soundscapes, restful music, prophetic prayer, and truth that makes us free. It’s available for free right now, with a week’s worth of stories, music and soundscapes to use. A annual subscription is available through the app that will give access to the rest of our content library where the journey continues.
Mindfulness isn’t wrong and meditation wasn’t created by the enemy (who isn’t much of a creator to begin with). Meditation is actually something we are commanded to do - we are commanded to meditate on the Word of God. Where meditation from a new age or Buddhist perspective is based in the emptying of our minds, Judeo-Christian meditation is entirely about filling our minds up with Jesus, the Word of God.
We posit that Jesus is the answer to broken rest.
At the heart of this app is a desire from two parents, Brittany and myself, to see our kiddos develop a lifestyle of expecting God to be present with them. When Brittany and I began looking for options we could incorporate into our children’s nightly bedtime routine, we found that most of the available options were either a. geared towards adults or b. closely related to practices that we felt were antithetical to Biblical precedent, either in origin or intent.
So, after asking Holy Spirit, and feeling like we got a “yes” on spending our time and effort on it, we built this app. It’s called Abba’s World because the idea that the whole world, the cosmos, the world awake and asleep, it all belongs to God. It’s called Abba’s World because Jesus called Father God, “Abba.” Abba is an Aramaic word, familiar and colloquial in nature, that essentially means, “Daddy,” or “Papa.”
It’s all Abba’s world.
Our Days our his.
We are used to devoting the time when we’re awake to God; comfortable using the free choice we have to partner with God. Beloved, keep going. Don’t stop. Do life with God, loving him with everything you are. Love people in a similar fashion: akin to how you love yourself (or those dearest to you). Let the sun shine on the breakthrough you partner with in those around you, the hope Holy Spirit fosters in those around you by your example.
Our nights can be, too.
God is with us all the time. I’m near my wife all the time too - that doesn’t mean I’m always giving her my attention. It doesn’t mean that I am always facing her, talking with her, engaging her. The differences between engaging with her or not, between engaging with God or not: intent and choice. Abba’s World is a tool to aid in that step of intentionality - assisting the aim of our hearts toward God.
If we have better nights
we will have better days.
When it’s ready, you can get the app here. Feel free to sign up to join alpha testing, below.