So for the past few weeks...well for the past month and a half... I've been posting mostly on two different topics, the different aspects of suffering, trying to answer the questions:
Why does suffering exist, when God is love?
Why does suffering exist, when Salvation is here?
Whether I've done a good job of answering those or not... I've also been posting on a different topic.
Seeking.
Seeking God's Heart, Face, Voice, and Word.
Now a new question.
What do seeking and suffering have to do with each other?
Well, what one thing do they have in common?
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Today, I'm going to add a third dimension to this blog of complete chaos... but just so y'all know, it's perfectly organized inside my head... and when I say that I mean I got a few things rattling around up there and I need to talk about them but I have no clue when, how or what I need to say around them for it to make sense... thank God for the Holy Spirit. ;)
So without any further ramblings on nothing... I'm going to dive in.
Names.
We all have them.
Sometimes we wonder what our parents were thinking... but soon find out that our name ends up fitting our personality down the road.
What do you mean?
Names have meaning.
And what you name someone or something seems to eventually or always carry that meaning out.
God has given us names.
Human.
Hu-man.
Man or mankind.
Addam: which means from the ground, where we get the name in English: Adam.
Adam named his wife woman. And later made her name more personal, Eve, because she was the mother of all humans.
What we name ourselves, what other people name us, or call us invokes a reaction within us... it creates a notion of what we believe about ourselves.
God has given us names... His name. A name we can accept or reject. It describes us, creates something new within us, redefines us... or if we choose to reject it... it does nothing.
He names us Christians. Christ-ians. Christ followers. God followers. His disciples.
He calls us beloved.
He calls us forgiven.
He calls us Holy.
He calls us new.
What we are called and accept what we are called... does something to us.
We begin to strive to be what our name means.
God has a name.
Multiple names.
And he is named these names not because he has to strive for them but because it's His nature, His character.
We will begin with Elohim.
Elo- what?
Elohim.
Pronounced ELLO-HEEM.
You know some of us can say that we have known God for a long time, others maybe a lot shorter than 'a long time' but because He is spirit and we are flesh there are many times we forget who He is, we are so easily distracted... and that is why I made this blog... if nothing more to remind me of His nature, of His character, of who He calls me... of who He is.
And that's really where those two other topics come in...
Who is this God? Who is OUR God?
Who do we seek?
Who do we suffer for and suffer because of?
Are we seeking... to suffer?
Does this God who we now have explored His face, heart, word, and voice, have a name?
Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
The Hebrew word for 'God' in this instance, which just so happens to be the very first name God describes himself as, is Elohim.
In the beginning Elohim created...
This was the name that God wanted to be known as when speaking of creation. It's not personal. It's general. Every other god that claimed to be in charge of something, that claimed to be the creator of... they all have names, we see this when we look at world religions, we see this when we look at Greek and Roman mythology. We see that there are all these Gods... they all have created or have been put in charge of something. Elohim however has created EVERYTHING. This was the name the Israelites used when discussing Him with people from other nations.
But I've never heard of this before? Surely, if this was the name God decides to call himself when discussing all this might and power to create the heavens and the earth... that is all the fire breathing stars, that is the mighty ocean, the power of the volcano, the force of wind, the strength of rock, the beauty of the clouds... the LORD Almighty.
The name is translated even within the Hebrew text... and thanks to a popular song by Amy Grant, thanks to many Hymns we may have grown up with we may recognize Elohim by another name which is the Hebrew translation of Lord Almighty...
El Shaddai.
The God who is all powerful.
Then why Elohim?
Remember when I said we all have names... names.... not a name... but names.
Elohim is plural.
Yet it translates into a single name.
This is the part I mentioned before about mind blowing.
Is God revealing himself, his true nature, in the very first verse of the Bible?
Do we see an accurate view of the trinity in the very first verse?
Or is it that God was revealing something else...
something even crazier?
That the god that the Greeks worshiped as the god of the sea, the god of the sky, the god of love, the god of war, the god of... etc. etc. is actually all the same God?
Does this reveal something about human nature as well?
We are created in His image.
And we were created AFTER this revelation.
This God is so immense, so powerful that he completely surpasses and at the same time encompasses all descriptions, all powers, all might, all forces, and all pieces of mother nature.
Surpassing and encompassing... that's as crazy as something being over and underneath.
So crazy that I was forced to create a new word... yeah my blog title.
Same idea with the writers of Genesis.
A new word... a new name. God inspired.
Because that's the name God wanted to be described as... 'In the beginning'.
Before all other things.
Before all other names and descriptions... he was named indescribable.
As if the Hebrews were saying, all of your other gods, together, still can't even come close to the power of this one true God. Because he surpasses and encompasses all of them.
What a statement.
What a reality.
What a truth.
Omnipotence.
The possession of all power.
Shouldn't we just relax and meditate on that simple reality that really isn't so simple... the majesty and power of God. The might and strength of El Shaddai.
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So now what? I knew God was mighty and strong and all that... I didn't need a name for it.
Yes we do.
This name for God isn't just a name for Him... it's a call to us.
This call is a low blow to the notion of self reliance.
We may believe in God... but sometimes... we believe in ourselves more.
Why?
Because we are raised in a culture that promotes it so vividly.
Sayings like...
If you put your mind to it... you'll accomplish anything.
You can do this.
Shake it off.
Stop wallowing.
You are stronger than you think.
A human's greatest weapon is their own mind.
Movies that show how the good guy always comes up with crazy almost unthinkable things and does the near impossible to 'save the day'.
On second thought... we are drowned in a culture that promotes it so vividly.
Self reliance.
What Elohim does to us is state, 'Look where self sufficiency got you.'
Look? Look where? At what?
Me.
Where?
Hanging on that bloody tree.
Nails through my feet and my wrists.
Nails that you drove into me.
Nails I allowed, Nails I created.
Driven into a tree that I created, that I grew.
By you. MY creation.
Look where self sufficiency got us.
Self sufficiency got us to a point where we could no longer live... But Elohim decided to give us a way to stand on His efficiency.
To trust in His sufficiency.
Isaiah 9:6 says, "For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
Did you catch that?
Mighty God.
EVERLASTING Father.
El Shaddai.
Elohim.
God.
But we can clone things.
We have iPhones.
We walked on the moon.
We have studied the stars.
We can blow up the entire planet with all of the weapons we have created.
We can heat things up.
Freeze things down.
We can channel the might of the ocean.
Harness the power of the wind.
Recreate lightning with our electric power plants.
Break apart cells and atomic matter.
We can magnify and trap radiation.
We can be... God?
We think we can be God.
And sometimes...
God has to do things to help us see how far we are off.
Sometimes it takes a tornado to prove to us...
Sometimes it takes a tsunami...
Sometimes it takes cancer...
Sometimes it takes ____________ fill in the blank.
This same species that has walked on the moon, built skyscrapers, made the internet, can be shown what we truly are by one small clot in one small artery.
We all will be brought to what we truly are... dust. Beautiful dust. But dust nonetheless.
We aren't God.
We are nothing like the Everlasting Father, the Mighty God, Elohim.
We are lost in ourselves.
Sin does that.
We become lost in another path.
What does it take to wake up from the delusion that we were ever mighty?
Sometimes it takes... God to come to earth and show us a different path.
A path that leads to a cross.
A path that leads to a choice.
A path that leads to a grave.
And He says... look at my might.
I am mighty to save.
Elohim.
Sin has no shackles, death has no sting, Hell, has been defeated.
The grave could not hold... the Lord Almighty.
There is a song by Hillsong called 'Mighty to Save' and it takes a knowledge of just one of the names of God to shed a whole new light on the meaning of the song to me. I encourage you to listen to it if you don't know it.
He can move those mountains that we can't cross, the mountains that takes the one true God to break apart.
He is Mighty to Save.
He is Elohim.
But there are times that we forget that.
Times that we wallow in ourselves and it can feel good, it may be a mountaintop experience... but suffering is inevitable.
It's what sin does to humanity.
It's a mechanism that God uses to shout to our deaf ears.
Much like Job.
And I love chapter 38 of Job...
God speaks.
But God speaks in a way that only God would, in a way that only God could.
Out of a storm... some translations say a whirlwind or twister.
“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
“Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the rooster understanding?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?" (38:2-38)
Sometimes God speaks and says, I am Elohim. And our self sufficiency clouds our understanding. The very name of God demands a response and it is total and complete surrender.
But you see, it works both ways... sometimes we can have so much self doubt... so little assurance of what God has blessed us with, that we remain stagnant and depressed.
We can feel defeated.
Like God is against us.
Elohim is a call to the doubting too.
Sarah was so discouraged by decades of infertility of feeling like a failure to Abraham.
Hannah was bullied by Elkanah's other wife constantly because she was barren, yet Elkanah loved Hannah more.
It was hard to accept the good news when it came... that Elohim was doing something great.
They both had sons in late age, Sarah especially, and both sons became major factors in the Bible.
Isaac, a patriarch and father of Jacob. Samuel, a major prophet who anointed the first two kings of Israel.
God changes lives. El Shaddai is mighty enough to take whatever depravity, whatever problem, and create something new, something great, something majestic.
Your very existence is the handiwork of the great Elohim. The God who created EVERYTHING takes the time to fashion you, a masterpiece in His eyes. And He cares for His creation. Because He can.
He does.
He will.
He is Elohim.
The world will push it aside, tell you to pick up your boot straps... try to make you forget, to move on, to learn from you past... Elohim says, no.
Your pain is part of the story.
Part of the journey.
It matters.
Because you matter.
Setbacks are just that, setbacks.
Not the end.
Because Elohim is powerful enough to give everlasting glory.
Everlasting goodness.
Everlasting love.
With man some things are impossible but with Elohim all things are possible.
All words from Elohim will never fail.
It's not about how powerful we are or how powerful we can be... but what God has already done.
We need to be reminded that no matter what... no matter how deep the waters may be... no matter what this fallen world creates... nothing is impossible with Elohim. He powerful enough to hold you, hold me. To cry with us, to suffer with us, to dance with us, have fun with us.
But there is something else that God can do.
Despite our sin. Our failures. Our disobedience. Our wrongs. Our hate. Our rejection of Him.
Elohim is powerful enough to say, 'I love you.'
No matter what.
