The God who heals

It was God Himself who told the Hebrews this wonderful truth: if you fulfil just a few clear conditions, I will protect you from the diseases that are known to other nations, for I am Yahweh Rapha - the Lord who heals you. (Exodus 15: 26)

What were those conditions for health and healing? 

• listen carefully to me 
• do what is right
• pay attention to my commands
• obey my instructions.

Many of God's commands are for our own good, for our own health and wellbeing. God promised to guard and heal His people if they sought to live the way He had shown them.

Does that mean that people who follow God will never get ill?

No, that's not what God is saying here. We live in a fallen world and sickness is one consequence of that. In both the Old and New Testaments we read accounts of believers who became ill. God doesn't promise that we'll have perfect health till our dying day... but He does assure us that He is able to step in and heal us - usually in answer to prayer. Healing the sick was one of the main ways that Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom of God.

David wrote in Psalm 103: 3 that God forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. When the prophet Isaiah foretold the suffering of the Messiah, he wrote in Isaiah 53: 5 that because of His wounds we are healed.

But rapha is an interesting word that refers to more than just physical healing; in the Bible it also refers to healing hurts, fixing defects and restoring wholeness.

Psalm 147: 3 says that God heals the broken hearted. Jeremiah and Hosea both write that God wants to heal the nation's unfaithfulness and backsliding. There are several verses about toxic water sources being "healed" (made pure and healthy) and there's the well known promise in 2 Chron 7: 14 that God will heal our land/nation if we humble ourselves and pray. Yahweh Rapha wants to bring healing, restoration and wholeness in all areas of our life and relationships.

People often ask me where I stand on this personally. They know I believe that God heals; they know I've led KKI outreaches where kids have prayed for people in the street and seen them healed... but they also know that I have several health challenges personally that have not been healed. I've lived with a lung condition and a mild heart murmur for the past 35 years. I face musculoskeletal challenges due to arthritis and fibromyalgia. At the moment I'm struggling with the limitations caused by having a painful neuroma on the sole of my foot. All of these conditions have been prayed for at different times over the past few decades. "How can I believe God heals," people ask me, "if I am not seeing His miraculous healing in my own life?"

My answer may seem simple, but to me it's part of what it means to "live by faith." I don't know or understand why I've never seen a dramatic, miraculous healing of some of the physical challenges I face, but I do know that I've experienced His grace and His strength in remarkable ways over those decades. My personal physical limitations have not prevented me from being able to serve God in several different nations of the world. I've experienced something of what Paul describes in 2 Cor 12: 9 when he says that God's strength becomes even more obvious when we ourselves have weaknesses. It takes faith to pray for healing, but it also takes faith to keep trusting God if the healing doesn't happen as you hoped for.

So I continue to believe that God is a God who heals. My subjective experience might raise questions or doubts for some people, but our own individual experiences can never change the truth about who God is. We need to observe and evaluate biblical truth by looking at the bigger picture and not at one small detail or individual experience.

In what ways do you need to experience God as Yahweh Rapha this week?

The Forgiving God; He carries the weight

The Bible clearly proclaims that our God is a God who forgives. The psalmist declares that God has been El Nāśā - a Forgiving God to Israel. (Psalm 99: 8) Moses speaks it out in a prayer (Numbers 14: 18), and God describes Himself in that way too. (Exodus 34: 7)

There are two Hebrew words used in the Old Testament to express the concept of forgiving. One is sālaḥ; the dictionary definition, predictably, says it means to forgive. But the other word is nāśā', and its primary meanings in the Hebrew dictionary are to lift up, to carry a heavy weight or to endure.

It highlights the truth that when God forgives our sin, it's not simply a matter of ignoring it, as if it weren't important. Instead, He is willing to carry its weight and endure the pain of it - best demonstrated in the way that Jesus carried the weight of our sin on the cross.

 

The God who is near...

There are many different religions and many different gods in the diverse nations of planet earth. It seems that every culture and people group in the world senses the need to recognise that there is Someone or Something beyond ourselves, and so cultures throughout history have come up with different gods that they choose to worship. Sometimes it's very obvious that we have invented gods in our own image: ancient mythology is full of stories of "gods" who had just as many faults and failings, sins and weaknesses as human beings do. In other modern cultures and ancient civilisations, though, their gods are distant and different, far above the reach of mere human beings.

The interesting thing about the Judeo-Christian God is that He is neither of these things. He is not a fallible, imperfect being like we are, but neither is He unapproachable, even though He is sinless, glorious, transcendent and infinite. He's a God who is far above what we could ever imagine or think up for ourselves, and at the same time, He's a God who wants to be very near to each one of us.

Moses spoke to the people of Israel, even before they entered the Promised Land and became a great nation, saying: “For what other nation has their god as near to them as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to Him?" (Deuteronomy 4: 7) "We worship Yahweh Qarob," he's telling them. "That's pretty unique. No other nation, no matter how great they are, has a god who is close to them, like ours is."

That's one of the reasons that Jesus came to earth. He came to demonstrate that God wants to be present in our lives and have a close relationship with us; He is the God who is near.

Later, when speaking to people who were not even believers yet, Paul told them of an "unknown God," urging them to seek Him and find Him because He is not far from any one of us. (Acts17: 27) "You don't yet know Him," Paul told the Athenians, "but He is not a distant God; He is eagerly waiting to draw closer to those who seek Him."

The word qarob appears a few dozen times in the Old Testament; sometimes it's translated as "neighbour" or "close relative." God wants to live as close to us as our next-door neighbour, or a family member who lives in the same house. He doesn't want us to keep Him at a distance.

The Old Testament Hebrews were very aware of this. The writer of Psalm 119: 151 proclaimed, "You are Yahweh Qarob and all your commandments are true." David wrote in Psalm 145: 18 that the Lord is near (Yahweh qarob) to all who call on Him in sincerity. Isaiah urged Israel to, "Seek the Lord while He can be found; call upon Him while He is near." (qarob - Isaiah 55: 6)

Let's not keep God at a distance, but rather allow Him to draw near to us. James encouraged the New Testament believers to, "Come near to God and He will come near to you." (James 4: 8)

What are some of your best ways to "draw near to God"?

For me, it can be reading my Bible in the morning, listening to worship music, or walking with my dog in the stillness and beauty of creation.

In what ways can you draw closer to Yahweh Qarob this week?

My Strong Tower

I'm still in Germany, where B2b (a leadership seminar) finished at the weekend and PCYFM (a youth ministry training course) started yesterday. Last week's softly falling snow has also given way to drizzle and driving rain. 

On Sunday, some of the PCYFM students went on an outing to visit the Bastei Bridge, about an hour's drive from where we're staying in the eastern region of Germany. The Bastei is one of Germany’s most unique landscapes. Giant pinnacles of sandstone rock tower above the Elbe River and a dramatic stone bridge seems to span those pinnacles  - connecting the huge towers of rock and then seeming to disappear into nowhere. (Photo above.)

I would have loved to go with them to see this unusual feature of God's creation, but I knew that the lump on the sole of my foot would make it impossible for me to walk the 40 minutes to and from the lookout point. I was also only too aware that going out in the rain would not be a wise decision (because I have a lung condition that makes me vulnerable to bronchitis) when I needed to be able to teach for five days this week in the PCYFM.

So, while others headed out to have some fun, I decided that it would be wiser for me to stay home and keep dry. It made me very aware of my own physical weaknesses - both in my lungs and in the mobility challenges I currently face because of the neuroma on my foot. I wasn't able to see those towering rocks, but I was able to reflect on a different kind of tower. One of the biblical names of God is Migdal Oz - our Strong Tower.

When in Spain, I live in a town called Alhaurín de la Torre. The tower in the centre of town is not the original construction that gives the town its name, but it's a reflection of the fact that many Spanish towns historically had fortresses and strongholds to protect the inhabitants from invading armies. You can see many of the original towers all along the Spanish coastline, as well as in many mountainous inland towns. The strong tower was a place of safety and refuge, a place that people could flee to when there was danger. In a story told in the book of Judges, the people of an entire city fled to the roof of their strong tower (Judges 9: 51) and the attacking king, Abimelech, was killed when a woman dropped a stone on his head. The people of Israel understood well what it meant to have a migdal oz to flee to when danger was imminent and they felt weak.

So they also totally understood what the songwriter meant when He proclaimed (Psalm 61: 3) that God is a strong tower for us against the enemy... or when that psalmist's son wrote that the name of the Lord is a strong tower (Prov 18: 10) that the righteous can run to for safety. God's name in the biblical context meant His character, as I've been seeing in these weeks of studying biblical names of God. God's unchanging character is like the migdal oz was for ancient cities: a constant source of strength and safety.

Read on below for another name that speaks of the strength God gives us.

The Lord, my Strength

The Hebrew word,ʿōz, translated as "strong" in the name Strong Tower (Migdal Oz), is often combined with the names Yahweh or Elohim throughout the Old Testament to give us another very common name of God: the Lord, my strength. Yahwehʿōz usually becomes something like Yahweh Uzzi in modern Hebrew pronunciation, and proclaims the very real truth that God is our source of strength. He remains consistently strong, even when we feel weak - physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.

After the trauma of being pursued by the Egyptians and the awe-inspiring experience of crossing the Red Sea on dry land, Moses and the Israelites proclaim, "The Lord is my strength and my song." (Exodus 15: 2) The same words are echoed centuries later in a prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 12:2), and later still the name Yahweh Uzzi is also used in prayer by the prophet Jeremiah.  

(Jer 16: 19)

The psalms are full of prayers and praise that recognise God as the source of our strength. David proclaims, "Lord you are my strength, Yahweh Uzzi, and my shield." (Psalm 28: 7), while another psalm writer, Asaph, encourages the people to, "Sing aloud to Elohim Uzzi, the Lord our strength." (Psalm 81: 1)

Those Old Testament believers knew that God is not only a strong tower we can run to, but is also the source of strength (ʿōz) for those who trust in Him.

Pliable for the Perfect Potter

The allegory of God as a Potter appears several times in both the Old and New Testaments. That's not surprising when you discover that the Hebrew verb yāsar actually means to create or to make. God is our Creator and the verb is often translated in the Old Testament as, "He formed.." or, "He fashioned.." - such as in Psalm 139: 15 - 16, which says that God formed us (ʿāśâ) in our mother's womb and shaped (yāsar) the destiny that he dreamt of for each one of us.

But there are also times when the context makes is obvious that God is being described specifically as a Potter. Isaiah 64: 8, for example, says very clearly that, "We are the clay and You are our Potter." In Jeremiah chapter 18, God asks Jeremiah to go and watch a real potter at work; then He speaks prophetically about His sovereignty in shaping the destiny of nations, depending on whether or not they are pliable in His hands.

In Romans 9: 20, Paul also uses the allegory of God as a Potter (the Greek word is kerameus) to illustrate how ridiculous it would be for us as human beings, God's creation, to think that we know better than He does. It's not the piece of clay who tells the potter what he should be doing, explains Paul.

So, seeing God as the Potter is on the one hand a picture of His creative power and His sovereignty. But it's also a picture of how gracious He is: when a pot turns out wrong, He doesn't simply throw it in the trash; He makes a fresh start and gently reshapes the clay again. The Potter is never rough or rushed; He's gentle, careful and patient as He gradually shapes the clay into what He desires it to be.

Just as our part is to be "good soil" for the Gardener (see yesterday's post), our responsibility is also to be "pliable clay" for the Potter.

I've never forgotten a word study that one of our African PCYFM students handed in as homework in 1996. She had chosen to do a study on the word delight, seeking to have more understanding of what the psalmist meant when he wrote in Psalm 37: 4 that if we delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart.

She expected to discover that the Hebrew and Greek words in the original text would be something to do with rejoicing and enjoying God... and this was in fact a common meaning of the original words. But she was puzzled when she looked up the dictionary definition of עָנַג ʿānaḡ, the verb used in Psalm 37: 4, and discovered that it also meant, "to be soft and pliable." That didn't seem to fit our usual understanding of delight.

God revealed to her that truly delighting in Him means that we will cooperate with Him; we will be willing and pliable clay in the hands of the Potter. As He moulds our desires and ambitions to be the same as His dreams for us, then we will regularly find that He is fulfilling the desires of our heart.

God is the perfect Potter. What kind of clay am I in His hands?

The Gifted Gardener...

There's not been much time over the past week for me to continue writing these regular blog posts about biblical names of God. I've spent the past week in the eastern part of Germany (with snowfall almost every day) as I've been working with an exciting and interactive young leaders' seminar called the B2b. (It stands for, "Be the leader God wants you to be.") 

Our theme for this particular B2b is, "A fruitful life." At various times and in different creative ways during the week, we've reflected on the story that Jesus told in Luke chapter 8 about the sower, the seed and the four different kinds of soil. How can we as believers and as leaders be the kind of "good soil" that allows God to bring forth much fruitfulness in and through our lives? 

Yesterday morning, the B2b participants were learning how to facilitate cell group or home group meetings, and were practising it together in small groups that included a time of studying and applying the things that Jesus said about fruitfulness in John chapter 15. So it seems fitting that one of the names of God I've been meditating on this week is found in that chapter. Jesus told His disciples: "I am the true Vine and my Father is the Gardener." The Greek word is Geōrgos, and the passage goes on to outline some keys to living a fruitful life.

Although the name Geōrgos  is only used of God in that one passage of the Bible, the understanding of God being a Gardener, Farmer or Vineyard-Owner had been a very common one, right from Old Testament days. It's no accident that Genesis begins with God creating a garden, and Revelation ends with the tree of life again having a central place in the new Jerusalem.

One of the best known Old Testament parables of the vineyard is in the book of Isaiah, where God speaks through the prophet to describe all the love and care He put into caring for and protecting His vineyard.... but it still produced sour grapes, much to the heartache of the Gardener. The meaning of the parable is stated clearly in Isaiah 5: 7 - Israel is the vineyard and God is the Gardener. 

Later, at the end of chapter 28, Isaiah compares God to a Farmer who knows the perfect timing for every crop and would not treat any seed/grain in a harsh way that would damage or crush it. 

Isaiah 28: 29 says His plan is wonderful and His wisdom is amazing. He is a very caring and gifted Gardener.

Jesus continues this theme in the New Testament, telling several parables where God is described as the Lord/Master of the vineyard, and telling the well known story about the farmer sowing seed. Some decades later, Paul reminds the early believers (1 Cor 3: 9) that we are God's garden (geōrgion).

The application for our own lives is clear: God is the perfect Gardener, but we also have a part to play... 

If we want to be fruitful, we need to be "good soil." Good soil is described in Matt 13: 23 and Luke 8: 15 as people who: 

1) listen, 

2) remember, 

3) obey, and

4) persevere.

If we want to be fruitful, we need to remain attached to the Vine (John 15: 5) and not try to do our own thing in our own strength.

When these conditions are in place, when we're cooperating well with God the Gardener, our lives and our ministries will be more fruitful.

Faithful God

The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy begins with this sentence: "These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan..."  That might sound like an insignificant detail - unless you've followed the story a bit and you know something of what had brought the people to this solemn and historic moment.

You see, Moses had been instrumental in bringing God's people out of slavery in Egypt and journeying with them to the new land that God had promised them. They had come so close to entering and possessing the land, but unbelief caused them to be unfaithful to God and forfeit the opportunity He was giving them. 

Have you ever messed up badly and felt that you missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime? That's what happened with these guys; they failed to enter the Promised Land at the time God had originally planned, and so Moses continued to travel with them through forty long, challenging years in the desert. Most of them lived and died in that wilderness, and a new generation grew up to take their place.

Now, they are once again presented with the opportunity to claim the blessing God wants for them. They're standing on the east side of the Jordan, a couple of million of them, and they can actually see the promised land on the other side of the river. Imagine the scene: they stand there, from the youngest to the oldest, and Moses stands in front of them for the very last time. He's old, he knows he's soon going to die and that he won't cross the river with the rest of the people. These are his final words to the people He has travelled with for the past four decades. 

After reminding this new generation of all that had happened, Moses zoomed in on the most important thing that they needed to know and remember for all generations (Deut 7: 9):

"Know that the Lord (Yahweh) your God (Elohim) is the Faithful God (El Aman) who keeps his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments."

El Aman. It's made up of the common name for God and the Hebrew verb aman, meaning to be faithful and trustworthy. (It's the same verb that gives us the word Amen, which literally means to be certain and true.) In modern Hebrew the name is more commonly expressed as El Hanne'eman - the Faithful God. Moses wanted the people to know that however much they had messed up in the past, God had always been and always would be completely faithful in every way.

In the New Testament, Paul expressed the same understanding when he wrote to Timothy that, even if we are unfaithful, God will still remain faithful because He cannot be untrue to who He inherently is. (2 Timothy 2: 13) That gives us incredible security because we know that God's faithfulness doesn't depend on who we are, but rather on the unchanging certainty of who He is.

One of my favourite worship songs that our KKI outreach teams used to sing a few decades ago, expresses this well: no matter what we're feeling or thinking, God will always be as faithful as the sun, the moon, the seasons... He is the One who holds our hearts in perfect peace. 

Click on the image below to watch the video I made today; the photos are from countries where I've lived over a lifetime of experiencing God's faithfulness.

Our Saviour and our Helper - part one

Perhaps one of the best known names of God is that He is our Saviour. Jesus' name was not just random. The angel told his earthly parents (Luke 1: 31 and Matthew 1: 21) that they were to name their son Yeshua, "because He will save His people from their sins."

The names Yeshua or Yehoshua (expressed in English as Jesus or Joshua) literally mean, "The Lord saves," or "God is my salvation" - from the name of God, Ya or Yeho, and the Hebrew verb yasha, meaning to save or deliver.

Old Testament believers already knew this: Moses in Exodus 15, David in Psalm 118 and Isaiah in his prophetic writing, all speak out a similar phrase: "The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation." (See Isaiah 12: 2, for example.)

Variations of that name - Yahweh Yeshua, El Yeshuati, Elohim Yasha - are found all throughout the Old Testament. God's people were in no doubt that He could save them, deliver them from their enemies, preserve them from death and keep them safe.

Isaiah 43: 3 and 11: I am the Lord Yahweh, your God Elohim, the Holy One Qadosh of Israel, your Saviour Yasha... apart from me, there is no other Saviour, Yasha.

New Testament believers, the earliest Christians, shared this conviction that God alone is the only Saviour and that salvation can be found in no other name. (Acts 4: 12) 

The Greek equivalents of Yasha and Yeshua are Sōtēr, sōtēria and sōzō. Similarly to the Hebrew, and perhaps even more so, those Greek words express not only deliverance from an enemy, but also healing and wholeness. Jesus not only saves us from sin and death and hell, but is also able to give us the wholeness and wellbeing that we simply can't find in other things.

Both the Old and New Testaments are clear: God/Jesus is not one among many possible saviours; He's the only Saviour. Our God is the only One able to give us salvation.

Although in one sense, our salvation happens "once and for all" (some people are able to remember a date), there's another sense in which God continues to save us and help us all throughout our lives. Read on below for more about this other name of God. 

Our Saviour and our Helper - part two

In the post above, I reflected on God's name, El Yeshua: God of my salvation. In church circles today, we often think of our "salvation" as something that began at a given point in time, while the use of Yasha in the Old Testament reflected a more ongoing understanding of God's continually rescuing His people and delivering them from their enemies.

While it's true that being "born again" isn't something that takes years to happen or that needs to happen over and over again, it's equally true that we remain in need of God's help and grace all throughout our lifetime here on earth. This is expressed quite well in the biblical understanding of God as our Helper. Not in the common understanding of how an employee or subservient person might help "the boss," but more in the sense of how a parent might help a child who is not able to do things for herself.

In the Old Testament, this is often expressed by the Hebrew name Yahweh ʿEzrâ, while in the New Testament, the Greek word boethus is used:

Psalm 46: 1 - God (Elohim) is our refuge and strength, an ever present Helper (ʿEzrâ) in times of trouble.

Psalm 40: 17 - I am poor and needy, yet the Lord (Adonai) keeps me in His thoughts. You are my Help (ʿEzrâ) and my Deliverer.

Hebrews 13: 6 - The Lord is my Helper (Boethus); I shall not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

The message could not be more clear: we can always call on God for help, including in times of trouble. However, if we don't realise like the psalmist that we are, "poor and needy," we will probably go through life thinking that we don't need God's help and will tend to do things in our own strength. We'll turn to Him only when we feel really out of our depth, instead of depending on His grace and help in all the aspects of everyday life.

Let's not go it alone. Let's begin each new day inviting God to be our Helper in all that we encounter that day.

God of the impossible - the all powerful One

Shaddai: used nearly 50 times in the Old Testament, it means that God is all-powerful and self-sufficient. Nothing is too difficult for Him, so He doesn't "need" anyone or anything else. He is the God who can do the impossible.

The name first appears in Genesis 17: 1, when God says to Abraham, "I am El Shaddai." It's in the context of God promising Abraham something impossible (a son) - something that Abraham had ill-advisedly tried to achieve by his own efforts. God wanted Abraham to know that He is the Almighty, the all-sufficient One, able to do the impossible without any clumsy attempts at "help" from our side.

He introduced Himself the same way to Jacob (Gen 35: 11), another one who had foolishly tried to bring about God's will in his own way. Jacob was deeply impacted by that encounter at Bethel and still spoke of it in his old age. Towards the end of his life, he blessed his son Joseph in the name of El Shaddai. (Gen 49: 25)

This understanding of God as an all-powerful, all-sufficient God carries into the New Testament, expressed by the Greek word Pantokrator. Several times in the visions of Revelation, we see Him worshipped as Lord God Almighty. A well known example is Revelation 19: 6 - Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! (Kyrios Theos Pantokrator)

It's a reason to approach and worship God with reverence and awe; not a reason to keep Him at a distance. One of the paradoxes of our faith is that we can recognise God's incredible power, we can realise that He doesn't need us, yet He longs for relationship with us and invites us to draw close, right into His presence.

In Psalm 91: 1, Moses recognises God as El Elyon (God most high) and El Shaddai (the all-powerful God), yet speaks of dwelling in His presence, close enough to be covered by His shadow; he's discovered that we find rest if we shelter in the "secret place" with God.

Because we know the God of unlimited power, we can also trust Him with the impossible situations in our own lives. I can think of at least two things in my life that seem impossible right now. What about you?

Let's stay in the shadow of El Shaddai and trust Him to handle the things that are too difficult or impossible for us. Nothing is too hard for Him.

A multi-faceted knowledge of God

Today I continued the word study I began yesterday, reflecting on the verses in the Bible where God is called our Rock. I discovered that Sela is used only half a dozen times to describe God - mainly in the psalms, and usually expressing the idea of safety and protection, such as when David proclaims, "The Lord is my Rock, my fortress and my Deliverer." (Psalm 18: 2) Most other uses of sela in the Old Testament refer to literal rocks or stones.

Tsur is used more often, also appearing a lot in the psalms, and often appearing in the same psalm and even the very same sentence as sela. In Psalm 18: 2, for example, where Sela is translated Rock, Tsur is translated strength: "... my God, my strength (tsur) in whom I trust, my shield (māḡēn), my high tower"(miśgāḇ). 

Same thing in Psalm 19: 14, where David's prayer ends with the words, ".. oh, Lord (Yahweh), my strength (tsur) and my Redeemer (Gā'al)." In these examples, Tsur seems to be about God's consistent strength and dependability, rather than about protection, but the sense of safety and deliverance often appears in the same sentence.

The writer of Psalm 92: 15 echoes what Moses said in Deuteronomy 32: there is no injustice or unrighteousness in God the Rock; we'll find Him always dependable, even when we reach old age.

I was struck by the fact that the Old Testament followers of God were not narrow or limited in the way they saw Him: they often used several of His names in the same declaration of praise.     

Like David in Psalm 18: 46 - "The Lord is alive (Yahweh Hai), blessed be my Rock (Tsur) and let the God of my salvation (Eloha yēša') be exalted."

Or like Hannah in 1 Sam 2: 2, when she proclaims, "There is none holy as the Lord. (Yahweh Qadosh) There is no one like You. Neither is there any Rock like our God." (Tsur Elohim)

These Old Testament believers knew the character and names of their God, and used those names often in their prayers. I had to ask myself: am I, are we so familiar with God's character and so multi-faceted in our prayer and worship, or do we always say, "Lord," as if it were the only name we knew? 

So, sela and tsur are used throughout the psalms, and tsur continues to be one of the ways that Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Habakkuk, refer to God, our Rock and strength.

But what about ourselves in the 21st Century? Is God the Rock still an important understanding for New Testament believers? Can we still turn to Him for strength and protection today.

The concept of God as our Rock is not found quite as often in the New Testament, but it's hinted at in the parable of the man who built his house upon the rock (Greek: petra), as well as in Matthew 16: 18, when Jesus tells Peter (Greek petros) that the future church will be built upon the rock (Greek: petra) of who Christ is.

Paul makes it even more specific when he writes to the Corinthians about a "spiritual Rock" that travelled with God's people in the wilderness, and explains that, "that Rock was Christ." (1 Cor 10: 4)

So, yes, the idea of God our Rock was understood by the early Christians, and He still wants to be our Rock today. In what ways do you need to depend on Him or trust Him to protect you this week?

God, our Rock

Having established yesterday that the Lord is the Living God, it might seem strange that there is not one but two different names of God that both mean the Rock. Far from being alive, a rock is an unmoving, inanimate object of nature. Yet in the Old Testament, we find ha Sela and ha Tsur - both meaning the Rock. Why would people in the Bible choose these names to describe who God is?

I'm not walking much at the moment (because of the neuroma that I described in my post of 7th Feb) but in previous years, I and the dogs have walked thousands of kilometres through the forests and across the hillsides of southern Spain. My goal was always to walk at least the same number of kilometres as the year (2023 km in the year 2023, for example) but there were some years where we managed to clock up more than 3000 km. On our hikes, we saw, and sometimes had to clamber over, impressively large rocks of all kinds. 

It's hot here in summer time; if you only walk your dog in the streets of town, you can't go out between 10 am and 7 pm because the hot concrete pavement would burn the skin off their paws. So afternoon walks, when the temperature is in the 30s, have to be on dirt paths in the forest, where there's some breeze and some shade offered by trees and rocks. That's how I noticed that the really large rocks offered a cool shadow, a respite from the blazing sunshine. 

It reminded me of an old Easter hymn I heard as a teenager; it described the cross of Jesus as, "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land." Those lyrics don't have the same impact when you live in Scotland and the shelter you're usually seeking is shelter from the driving rain. But when it's 38℃ in the sunshine, you become very aware of the protection found in the shade of a large rock: that's the place to pause and give the dogs a drink of water.

The verse quoted in that old hymn is Isaiah 32: 2, and the Hebrew word translated rock is כָּבֵד - Sela. It means exactly what you'd imagine: a high rock or cliff. Metaphorically, because of its height and strength, it's sometimes translated as "fortress." The other word used to describe God as our rock is צוּר - Tsur. The meaning is almost the same. The slight nuance is that Sela typically refers to a rugged cliff, high rock or hiding place for security, while Tsur often refers to a hard, sharp stone or a solid foundation, implying strength or permanence.

But that distinction isn't absolute. In Psalm 61: 2 - 3, for example, when the psalm writer is feeling overwhelmed and prays, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I am," he's obviously seeking a safe place and seeing God as a refuge from his enemies. That word for rock in Psalm 61 is tsur and it's referring to shelter and security. But the Rock (ha tsur) is also the word used in Deuteronomy 34: 4, where it's referring more to the permanence, the unchanging dependability of God's sinless perfection and justice. Like a rock in the forest or on the beach, enduring through the centuries and surviving every violent storm (like we've been having in Andalucía over the last few weeks) God's character is completely dependable: he will always be just, always be faithful and never do anything wrong.  As the proverb goes, He's "solid as a rock."

So there's not a clearly defined distinction between ha Sela and ha Tsur, but they both refer to God as the Rock, our Rock*, and I'm going to meditate over the coming days on verses where those words appear.

*In the specific context of Isaiah 32, sela is not applied uniquely to God, but simply refers to a "righteous king." Lots of other verses, however, say that God is Sela, and I'll look at those this week.

 

A God who is truly alive today

Over the weekend, I meditated on two names of God that were revealed to the young slave woman, Hagar, when she was pregnant and alone in a desert place: El Roi, the God who sees me, and El Shama, the God who hears me.

Hagar wasn't a Hebrew; she was an Egyptian. She came from a nation where more than a thousand different deities were worshipped... but her personal encounter, there in the wilderness, with a God who saw her dilemma and heard her cry led her to one incontrovertible conclusion: this God who sees and hears me, who knows my deepest need and longing, is truly alive.

So she gave a name to the spring of water where this encounter had happened: she called it Beer-lahai-roi - the well of the Living One who sees me. El Hai or Elohim Hai is a common name for God throughout the scriptures, but it is this foreign slave girl in Genesis 16 who first speaks it out.

El Hai, sometimes written Chai to reflect the guttural sound of the Hebrew and connect it to the common Hebrew toast, "L'Chaim - to life!" Surely it's obvious that God is living?

But it wasn't obvious back in that day when the people of Canaan (and of Egypt, where Hagar came from) worshipped countless "gods" made of wood and stone. Hagar's encounter at that well opened her eyes to the existence of a God who was truly alive and not just a creation of man. It was unknown of in those days, and today too, for there to be a God who was alive and intelligent, able to relate to and communicate with human beings.

So perhaps that's why Elohim Hai, the Living God, is mentioned quite often in the Bible. The name made the one true God stand out as unique, and reminded Israel that their God was completely different from the false gods of other nations.

Centuries later, when the Israelites were about to cross the River Jordan and enter their promised land, Joshua told them, "Today you will know that El Hai, the Living God is among you (Joshua 3: 10) and will drive out the peoples and the idols who defile the land He'll be giving you.

Surprisingly, even Job, amidst his suffering and his flawed picture of God, declared at one point, "I know that my redeemer lives and in the end will stand on the earth."(Job 19: 25 - Gā'al Hai)

The psalmists longed for relationship with the God who was genuinely alive. If a loved one is dead, we can only think of them fondly... but if they are alive, we can enjoy spending time in their presence. And so, several of the psalmists wrote that they longed for God's presence.

Perhaps one of the best known examples is Psalm 42, a song where the psalmist compares his longing for God to the panting of a thirsty deer in search of water. "My soul," he writes (the word is nephesh, like we find in God's name Shub Nephesh), "is thirsty for God, the Living God." Elohim El Hai. 

Knowing that God is alive makes a big difference to how we approach life and the challenges that it might bring our way. When King Hezekiah was facing threats from an invading Assyrian army, he turned to the God who hears - Yahweh Shama; see yesterday's post - and asked to be delivered from the hand of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, who dared to mock Elohim Hai, the Living God. That's in Isaiah 37: 17.

When the prophet Jeremiah boldly challenged the idolatry of the Israelites, he reminded them that the Lord, Yahweh, is the only true God, Elohim emeth, the living God, Elohim Hai, and the everlasting King, Olam Melek. (Jeremiah 10: 10) Having such clear knowledge of who God is gave him the courage to confront all kinds of wrongs. Faced with the futility of idols, Jeremiah's rebuke to the people contains several names of the only true and living God.

This is the same God that we can know and serve today. When Peter understood that Jesus was the promised Messiah, he declared: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." (Matthew 16: 16, where the Hebrew El Hai becomes Theos Zao or Zon in New Testament Greek.)

The apostle Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they turned away from worthless idols to serve the true and living God (1 Thess 1: 9) and several times in his letters to Timothy, he reminds the young pastor that our hope and trust are in the Living God (for example, in 1 Timothy 4: 10).

Jesus alluded to this several times when He was on earth. "I am the way, the truth and the life," He said. (John 14: 6) "I have come to give you life in all its fullness." (John 10: 10) And just in case anyone thought His crucifixion and burial had put an end to that life, He makes a very clear declaration in the vision that John has of Him in Revelation 1: 18 - "I am the Living One. I was dead, but now look: I am alive for ever and ever."

We may not worship idols of wood or stone like they did in Egypt or Canaan or Greece... but how easy it can be to give our time and attention to things that are not life-giving. Instead, let's choose daily to keep our focus on El Hai, Theos Zao; on Jesus who said, I am the life, and who promised to give us life in abundance.

God hears.... but do we?

Yesterday, reflecting on the fact that God sees us, we found in that same passage that God also hears us. God tells the pregnant Hagar to name her son Ishmael because He has heard her there in the desert.

El Shama or Yahweh Shama, while not always listed as an actual name of God, is repeated over and over again in the Old Testament: God hears the cry of His people, as individuals and as a group.

In Genesis 16: 11, Ishmael got his name (it means, "God hears") because God heard his mother's cry when he was still in the womb. Later, when he was a teenager (Gen 21: 17), God heard Ishmael's own cry in a time of need.

And so it continues throughout scripture: God hears the prayers of Leah and Rachel (Gen 29 and 30); He hears the groaning of His people in slavery (Exodus 2 and 3) and He hears their complaining in the wilderness (Ex 16 and Num 14). The writers of the psalms tell us that God hears our prayer and hears our weeping (Psalm 6), He hears our desires (Psalm 10), hears our requests (Psalm 28), hears our promises (Psalm 61). Over and over again the psalmists declare that God hears our voice.

But God isn't just hearing our voice amidst a hubbub of other sounds. If you look up šāmaʿ שָׁמַע in a Hebrew dictionary, it means to hear intelligently, to listen carefully, to pay attention to... When we say that God hears us, we mean that He listens attentively and will respond in some way.

In fact, ancient Hebrew didn't have a separate, distinct word for obey, because listening attentively was considered equivalent to doing what was heard. שָׁמַע is translated "hear" almost a thousand times in the Old Testament, but there are also around a hundred times when it is translated as "obey" or understand - especially in the psalms and proverbs.

So, in the famous "shema prayer" that Jews learn by heart and are commanded to pray even today, šāmaʿ isn't just a command to hear God, it is also a call to obey. (Deuteronomy 6: 4 - 5)

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ יְיָ אֶחָד

Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad

Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, 

the Lord is One.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength.

I work with a ministry that encourages young people to "hear and obey God's voice." We use two separate words in English. But for the Hebrew, šāmaʿ implied both hearing and obeying. They're not to be separated, but are to be interlinked as the only fitting response to a God who hears us and also speaks to us in reply.

God hears us; He's listening attentively and ready to respond. But the challenge to us is: how attentive and obedient are we?

What's been happening?

If you've come here to follow my daily posts on biblical names of God, please scroll down to the post below this one.

If you've come here to catch up with what's been happening in my life and health, this is the post for you.

I didn't blog much in 2025. The last you heard from me was a post in mid February where I told you that I'd been diagnosed with a painful lump, a neuroma on the sole of my right foot. It was, and still is, like walking with a little marble inside my shoe.

In fact, life took an unexpected turn in March of last year when a freak misadventure landed me in hospital with five broken ribs. For four long, painful months, I was hardly able to walk or move around at all. I needed to use a hospital bed to move me up and down, I wasn't able to drive or carry my own shopping, and I had to cancel a couple of ministry trips that were planned.

Unable to bend down or move my back without excruciating pain, I even had to teach my dog to pick up anything that I accidentally dropped on the floor! (Just for laughs, you might enjoy the video from the, "Helping Paws" competition that we entered during that time: https://youtu.be/AnCnj8A1GEg )

Meanwhile, the neuroma on my foot wasn't getting any better. By the time I had my first hospital appointment in July, it was so sensitive that I was walking with a stick and could barely make it from the bedroom to the bathroom without tears. The traumatologist prescribed expensive custom insoles, but they didn't make much difference: they allowed me to walk for around 15 minutes without too much pain, but were so uncomfortable that they couldn't be worn for any longer than that. Painful injections between my toes only seemed to make things worse rather than better. 

Finally, in January of this year, I had another appointment at a different hospital. This time, the traumatologist said that it seemed surgery would be the only sensible option - that it wasn't reasonable to expect me to live with this level of pain and lack of mobility for the rest of my life.

So now I'm waiting for an appointment with the department that deals with foot surgery. I don't know how long I'll need to wait, but we're moving towards the likelihood that I'll have an operation this year, a neurectomy to remove the section of nerve that has the lump on it.

It's been hard. I haven't been able to walk for almost a year now and I've gained a huge amount of weight from the complete lack of exercise. Thankfully, my wonderful neighbour has been taking my dog for a walk every morning with her own two dogs; I can't express what a blessing that has been.

I'd be grateful for your prayers for the next part of the journey: that I won't wait too long for appointments, that the surgery will be scheduled for dates that don't sabotage important ministry plans, that everything will go smoothly and that I'll recover well.

In one of last year's blog posts (now deleted), I shared that I had found a house that I wanted to buy. I put in an offer that was accepted and the process began to move forward.... until, just at the point of signing all the contracts, my lawyers discovered that the house couldn't legally be sold because the seller has so much debt and the house was in danger of being repossessed by the bank.

It was a huge shock at the time - though I saw God's faithfulness in the fact that no contracts had been signed and no money had changed hands. Now, a year later, when I look back at that strange episode of my life, I can see God's faithfulness in other ways too. 

I was able to stay on in the rental flat that I had just moved into, and it's been a good place to be. During the months with broken ribs and this whole year of being unable to walk, it's been a blessing to have the help of my neighbour who walks my dog every day and who also sometimes looks after Maiki when I have to travel for ministry.

I've kept looking now and then at houses for sale, but there is really nothing available in the current housing situation, and property prices continue to escalate at a crazy rate. I'm only too aware that my inheritance, my house-buying fund, is depreciating rapidly in my bank account... but all I can do is trust God's timing and his ongoing faithfulness.

Thank you for your prayers, and God bless you.

He misses nothing - The God who sees me

Today's name of God is found in Genesis 16, in the story of a woman named Hagar. She was an Egyptian slave, a person of little significance in the world she lived in. In fact, as her story begins, she is being used like a piece of property, a surrogate womb to provide an heir for her elderly owners who were unable to have children of their own. It was a common practice in that culture in those days.

Hagar probably felt unimportant and overlooked; felt that no one valued or cherished her. When her pregnancy led to tension and mistreatment from her mistress, she ran away, fleeing into the desert. Perhaps she was trying to return to her own country of Egypt.

But while she's resting by a stream of water, God appears to her in angelic form. His words show that He knows all about her: knows her name, knows she's pregnant, knows how she's been treated... Hagar probably thought that no one knew and no one cared what was happening to her, but God reveals Himself not only as the God who sees her, but also as the God who looks on her with compassion. He gives her promises for her son and for her future. Hagar is strengthened to realise that she has seen El Roi - the God who sees me.

As David wrote in Psalm 139, the details of our lives are never hidden from God. He sees and knows everything we do. There may be times, if we're up to no good, when we don't want to be reminded that God sees us. Only too aware of this, David prays in verse 24 that God will search him to see if there is any wickedness in him, and to lead him in the right paths. Knowing that God sees every selfish or dishonest thing we do should prompt us to live our lives with kindness and integrity. 

But the flip side of this is that God also sees every good thing we do, every pure motivation, every right attitude. Jesus taught (Matthew 6: 4) that God even sees the things that happen in secret, and that He will reward the good and unselfish things we do, things that other people aren't aware of. 

For almost five decades, I've worked with a ministry that places a high value on motivating people of all generations to live in a way that, "brings joy to God's heart." It's not just about self-interest and doing things so that we'll be rewarded. It's about understanding the incredible truth that I, although I'm only one small human among eight billion others on the face of the earth, have the capacity to bring God joy or to make Him sad. He sees absolutely everything, and small things that no one else notices can bring great joy to His heart.

So, when life leads us into hard times, if we feel ignored, overlooked or forgotten by others, we can be comforted by the knowledge that God always sees us. He misses nothing.  He knows our situation and He looks on us with compassion. As I saw yesterday, He sees our need (rā'â - the verb from Yahweh Yireh) and we can trust Him to provide what we need.

Hagar's story in Genesis 16 doesn't only introduce us to El Roi, the God who sees. It also shows us two more names of God: the God who hears (Ishmael's name is based on God's name, El Shema) and El Hai/Chai - the God who is alive. The spring or well where Hagar met with God became known as Beer-lahai-roi, the well of the Living One who sees me. I'll meditate on those other two names of God over the coming days.