The Name of God

For some reason or another I found my mind wandering again on Sunday as it most often does as I lose hold of the flow of the service slogging on around me, and I was thinking about when Moses was called by God and he said, "Well who are you? The people are going to ask me and I need to tell them something." And God replied, one of the many places in Scripture where He reveals who He is by the naming of Himself. And I thought further, which of the names of God is the most complete. Now I don't think there is a good answer to that, but the one that seems to at least be the one that has all of the elements to it that we need to know is "LORD, God Almighty." The LORD, all capitals, is that covenant name of God that He revealed again and again to Moses, it is that name by which He is worshiped in those scenes in Revelation 4. It is He that makes great promises that only the covenant Lord could make. And because He is God, and there is no shadow of turning within Himself, He makes good on those promises because He cannot lie. His word goes forth and accomplishes what it was sent to do. And not in a half-hearted way, because He is God Almighty, able to accomplish anything that He conceives.

I think we try to roll all of these into one when we use the word sovereign. Usually when we define this word it has all of those nuances of power and authority and ability to act. But I think that the meaning is closer to that answer God gave to Moses when He said "I am that I am." One rabbinic writer translated this more closely as "I will be whatever the situation demands." Another Christian writer I looked at said that sovereign means "God is in control", not controlling, but in control. There is a difference in those two that sometimes is hard to see and live in. So another thing that I think I will do in Lent this year is ask God once again to tell me who He is, who is it that makes the ultimate claim on my life and eternity, who is it that wakens me each morning and gives me rest each evening, who is this God that I have sought all these years? I will let you know what He has to say if I hear Him speak to me.