“G-O-D, God,” read Thomas. It’s the first sight word I taught him, and why not? It’s the most important word to know, for him and for you and for me. It’s the beginning of understanding everything. Origin of man and the universe? God. Giver of life? God. Sustainer, Creator, Provider, Author, Purpose-Giver, Indwelling Spirit. The One towards whom all time and eternity points, forward and backward. The A and Z, First and Last, Beginning and End. God. Every two year old in Sunday school knows He’s the correct answer to every question. He’s unchanging. His love never fails, and His mercies are new every morning. He invites us to come to Him, call on Him, abide with Him, but He didn’t wait for us to make the first move. Jesus was always part of God’s plan. He was the willing sacrifice, the Lamb slain from before the beginning of the world, (Revelation 13:8) yet far too many people throw His name around carelessly.
The ancient Jews so revered the name of God that they would not speak it aloud, instead using the LORD or the Name in place of the revealed name of God, represented by the Tetragrammaton, YHWH or YHVH. God first revealed His eternal name to Moses at the burning bush.
“God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.
Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.”
God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.
This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.”
Exodus 3:14-15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/exo.3.14-15.NLT
“So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.””
Luke 20:38 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.20.38.NLT
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I sometimes journal my prayers. I feel a deep kinship with the psalmists as I pour out the depths of my heart on paper. As melodramatic as it may sound, there is freedom in finding God at the end of myself. In some of my darkest valleys, my deepest frustrations, and most helpless moments, I find that writing longhand, not legibly or even coherently, transfers the cramped feeling from my chest to my hand, and before I have said all that only moments before crowded my mind, praise and thanksgiving flow easily.
I recently shared the story of one Old Testament king that challenges me in my faith and prayer life (Valley of Blessing) and now I will share another. These kings had much in common, but scripture records the odds stacked glaringly against them and their trust in God in the balance.
“Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord our God.”
Psalms 20:7 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.20.7.NLT
Assyria’s king was advancing against Judah in Jerusalem and he sent emissaries ahead to taunt those defending the wall. He was skillful with his scare tactics. He spoke to the people in Hebrew so that anyone within earshot could understand. “Don’t listen to your king,” they taunted, “when he says your God will defend you.” Hezekiah tore his robes and dressed in burlap. He sent a message to the prophet Isaiah.
They told him, “This is what King Hezekiah says: Today is a day of trouble, insults, and disgrace.
It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver the baby.”
Isaiah 37:3 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/isa.37.3.NLT
My daughter labored for twenty-four hours with my granddaughter before having an emergency c-section. I remember my son’s voice when he called to ask us to pray. We knew her doctor well. He trained with my own husband from undergraduate through medical school and though neither of them ended up practicing medicine where they initially intended, both bring healing from God’s hand in our community and given the choice, I’m certain neither would have it any other way. But on that twenty-seventh day in June two years ago, Amelia needed to be delivered. We were trusting God entirely, and we were also incredibly grateful for our friend in the operating room.
As we prayed with our son on that day, we received the peace of God that surpasses our ability to comprehend. God was guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus just as surely as if He had spoken words of comfort aloud. Through Isaiah the prophet, God returned a message to King Hezekiah, essentially saying, “I will deal with this. You trust me.” Then a letter arrives from the king of Assyria, addressed directly to Hezekiah.
“This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah.
Don’t let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria.
You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone.
They have completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way!
Why should you be any different?
Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar?
My predecessors destroyed them all!
What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”
After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord.
And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord:
“O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim!
You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth.
You alone created the heavens and the earth.
Bend down, O Lord, and listen!
Open your eyes, O Lord, and see!
Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God.
It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them.
But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands.
Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah:
“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:
Because you prayed about King Sennacherib of Assyria, the Lord has spoken this word against him:
“Whom have you been defying and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look with such haughty eyes?
It was the Holy One of Israel!
By your messengers you have defied the Lord.
You have said, ‘With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars and its finest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest heights and explored its deepest forests.
I have dug wells in many foreign lands and refreshed myself with their water.
With the sole of my foot, I stopped up all the rivers of Egypt!’
But have you not heard?
I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen.
I planned for you to crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble. That is why their people have so little power and are so frightened and confused.
They are as weak as grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, scorched before it can grow lush and tall.
But I know you well— where you stay and when you come and go.
I know the way you have raged against me. And because of your raging against me and your arrogance, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth.
I will make you return by the same road on which you came.”
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Here is the proof that what I say is true:
“This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit.
And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will put roots down in your own soil and grow up and flourish.
For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!
And this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:
“‘His armies will not enter Jerusalem. They will not even shoot an arrow at it. They will not march outside its gates with their shields nor build banks of earth against its walls.
The king will return to his own country by the same road on which he came. He will not enter this city,’ says the Lord.
‘For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend this city and protect it.’”
That night the angel of the Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere.
Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there.”
Isaiah 37:10-37 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/isa.37.10-37.NLT
The king of Assyria never made it back to Jerusalem. Sometime later, one of his own sons murdered him while he was worshipping in the temple of one of his many gods.
“Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God.
You will always harvest what you plant.
Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.
But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.
So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.”
Galatians 6:7-10 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/gal.6.7-10.NLT
My grandmother always said that every prayer doesn’t need to be spoken aloud. No sense in giving the enemy access to some thoughts and fears. God alone knows our thoughts, and if I need to write things out to bring the log jam outside my own head, I scribble because God already knows anyway.
“For there is nothing hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come out into the open.
So be careful how you listen; for whoever has [a teachable heart], to him more [understanding] will be given; and whoever does not have [a longing for truth], even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”
Luke 8:17-18 AMP
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