Tuesday Evening Chapel - My Devotional

Just this past week, one of the members of my Proverbs 31 e-mail group suggested an experiment. She suggested that we try to come up with as many words that describe God as we can that start with the first letter of that day of the week. On Monday, we came up with magnificent, mindblowing, and the ultimate multitasker. On Tuesday, God was truth, triumphant and totally trustworthy. This continued through Sunday, when God was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Isn't it amazing how many words we can use to describe our God? We could go on and on, and no one word would be sufficient to describe him fully.

The Bible is filled with a multitude of words used to refer to God. In the Hebrew, we hear names such as Elohim, proclaiming the Lord as the one true God, and El Shaddai which describes God as The Almighty. In English, we have many names for God as well.

We call Him God - the divine being of immeasurable power who created the world and continues to mold it as He wills. He has powers we can not comprehend, and knows more than we can ever dream.

We call Him our Lord. The 'our' is important here, since with these words, we are naming God our superior, just as the middle age serfs answered to the call of the lords who governed their lands. When we cry out to our Lord, we are giving Him the authority to govern our lives.

We call Him Father. Just as a father wishes to have a meaningful relationship with his children, so does our Holy Father wish to hold a meaningful relationship with us. He supports us, teaches us, encourages us as we grow and learn. And He loves us, more than we can imagine.

To be honest, I've only just picked at the tip of the ice berg. What other names do we give God? What roles does He play in our lives? In Grace for the Moment, Max Lucado writes:

God is
The shepherd who guides
The Lord who provides
The voice who brings peace in the storm
The physician who heals the sick, and
The banner that guides the soldier.

In her song "I am," Nicole Nordeman sings:

When life had begun, I was woven and spun,
You let the angels dance around the throne,
And who can say when,
But they’ll dance again, when I am free and finally headed home

I will be weak, unable to speak,
still I will call You by name
“Creator, Maker, Life-sustainer,
Comforter, Healer, My Redeemer,
Lord and King, Beginning and
the End.

Who is God for you today? Who was He for you yesterday? Who will He be for you tomorrow?

Amen.