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.
Hello, lovely friends. I've shared here before that I try to start each day by praying pretty much the moment my brain has figured out that I'm awake and that going back to sleep is not an option. This is not because I'm "holier than thou"...quite the opposite: it's because I need to fix my mind straight-away on the One Who is holier than me before it (my mind) gets bogged down with less holy things like what I'm going to make for dinner and if I ever transferred the load of laundry from the washer to the dryer.
I try to start these prayers by praising God before I launch into my litany of requests, and one way I do that is by telling God what His name is. He knows, of course; the reminding is for me. Every name of God tells us something about His character and nature, so often, I try to praise God for both Who He is (His name) and what or how He is (His character and nature). For instance, "God, You are El Shaddai...You are almighty and all-sufficient."
A few months ago, one of my favorite Bible study tools, the website She Reads Truth, did a study on the Names of God, and I loved being able to open their site on my phone first thing every morning (before I got sucked into the social media vortex) and be greeted by a name of God. I used that name to launch the praise portion of my prayer, and God and I were off and running. (Okay, He ran...I usually crawled, which at 5:20 a.m. is the best I can do.) I missed this resource when the series ended and so thought about doing a daily name of God series of my own in this space.
I originally planned to start this tidily on January 1st, but when the founder and leader of TruthBytes, the daily devotional app I've been privileged to be part of, announced she would be retiring the app after December 1st due to some major changes in her life, I decided to kick the series off early. And honestly, I can't think of a better way to keep my mind and heart on track during the whirlwind that is December than by starting every day thinking about Who God is and what He's like.
ALL of which is just to say that, God-willing, starting December 1st and going for 365 days, I'll be posting a name of God here every day. This will not be a full-fledged study (I know my limitations) but will instead be simply a name of God ("name" being a very loose term...some will be official names, some will be more like descriptions) with a supporting Scripture and possibly a little background.
My hope, if you're interested in joining me on this journey, is that you'll be able to just open your email if you're a subscriber or open this blog's home page and be greeted with one of the great names of God. Then I'll let Him take it from there.
Questions? Not sure what in the world I'm talking about? Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at spencerejoy@gmail.com. I hope to see you here on December 1st!
Onya (that's "verbal shorthand" in my ladies' Bible study group for "the blessing of the Lord be on you"),
Elizabeth
