When I was seven years old, I got lost walking home from a friend’s house. The impact of those frightening moments has been life-long.
I lived in Shelley, Idaho, where a dust-filled wind can nearly knock over a small child. The high school mascot is a potato. It was a town of three thousand people with one main street, and I got lost. I cried and remember speaking to the Lord for the first time, “God, help me get home!” I looked up and spotted the steeple of a church near my house and simply walked towards it.
Decades later, getting lost can still surface fear. Perhaps to you this will sound unreasonable, even humorous. I suppose another’s fears often sound that way. But the truth of God met me, and in the process it also became the name of God I most cling to and adore.
Today, years later, my favorite name for God is “Immanuel – God With Us.”
In moments of alone – I know His Presence.
I invite you to pause long enough to look at your own place of deepest pain or fear, then take a minute to investigate God’s names to see if you might also find God describing Himself in a way that touches your heart and perhaps even becomes part of your life story.
When we become known – is this the place we also begin to know God most deeply?
Last week I wrote about a woman alone in the desert. In desperation, Hagar (Sarah’s handmaid) looked deep into her own pain and realized God saw her. And she named Him El Roi – the God Who Sees.
When we are still, can we then see not only ourselves but also who God is? I want to spend more time connecting these two pieces. I’m realizing I get to know God better when I invite Him into the hidden places of my being. Sometimes facing myself introduces me to the Lord in a beautiful, new way.
I hope you make new discoveries about the God who sees you like Hagar did or the God who is with you, as I experienced. May a new-found truth about God’s character touch your heart and impact your days.
Most of the following list is taken from Praying Through the Names of God by Tony Evan. Perhaps you’ll find a new favorite name for your Lord included in this list.
Jehovah Jireh – The Lord Will Provide
Jehovah Shalom – The Lord Is Peace
Jehovah Rapha – The Lord Who Heals
Adonai – Master over All
El Chaseddi – God of Mercy
El Emunah – The Faithful God
El Hayyay – the God of My Life
Elohei Ma’uzzi – The God of My Strength
Elohim Machase Lanu – God Our Refuge
El Nose – the God Who Forgives
Jehovah Maginnenu – The Lord Our Defense
Jehovah Elohim Yeshua – Lord God of My Salvation
Peleh Yo’etz – Wonderful Counselor
Jehovah Shalom – The Lord Our Peace
Jehovah Raah – The Lord Our Shepherd
Abba – Father
Alpha and Omega - Jesus – the Beginning and the End
Pull up a chair and be still
What fear reoccurs in your life? What name of God might you embrace? I pray in facing your own fear, you, too, will meet the Lord in a new and breath-taking encounter.