365 Days of the Great Names of God, Day 1: Elohim

Elohim: mighty, supreme

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

Hello, sweet friends! I am so honored and thrilled to be starting this year-long journey with you. I promise I am not going to load you down every day with my ramblings. I just wanted to welcome you on this first day and offer a few thoughts on how you might approach this series.

As I mentioned in the introductory post, I like to use God's name to start off my early-morning prayers with praise and adoration instead of launching straight away into my list of requests. From there, the challenge is to apply the truth that God's name conveys to daily life. My husband says that when he does any kind of Bible study, he tries to ask himself, "What is God's Word saying, and what am I supposed to do about it?" In this case, maybe you and I will want to ask ourselves, "What is God's name saying, and what does He want me to do about it?"

I truly believe God's name provides comfort and strength and guidance and wisdom. But more than anything else, it brings about a deepening of our relationship with Him. After all, to know someone's various names usually means we have a certain degree of intimacy with them, and any deepening of our relationship with God is always for our good.

Elohim is the first name of God we come across in the Bible. If we were reading Genesis 1:1 in the original Hebrew, where our English Bible uses "God," we would read Elohim. (I like to know how to pronounce things in my head, so if that's you, too, this would be el-oh-heem.) This name reflects God's strength and authority. As with all God's character traits, these reinforce His perfection, His completion, His "lack of lacking." If God were mighty but had no authority to exercise that might, He would be less than He is. And if He had authority but no strength to go with it, He would also be incomplete. But He is both mighty and supreme...and so many other things we'll discover as we journey together through some of His great names. May they be praised forever.