Abba

Shane & Shane's “Abba” is a short, quiet song about belonging to God. It opens with the claim that he is more real than anything the singer can touch: “You're more real than the ground I'm standing on, you're more real than the wind in my lungs.” Those lines set up the idea that God's presence is more solid than the physical world.

The next line is about identity. “Your thoughts define me, You're inside me, You're my reality.” The singer then calls God by the name Abba, the word a child uses for a father, and says, “I belong to You.” The second verse repeats the pattern with a change in imagery: God is closer than the skin on the bones and closer than the song on the tongue. It adds that the Spirit of God has written on the heart, and that the singer is a child of God who belongs forever. The melody stays simple, and the lyric is mostly brief statements, which gives it room to be sung slowly with a guitar or at the close of a service. It is helpful for anyone who needs to hear that being adopted by God does not depend on feelings, and that his nearness is more certain than anything else they know.

Crying Abba, Father is Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6. God's hand laid upon his people is Psalm 139:5.