The Names of God Part V: The God Who is with Us

In this fifth and final post on the names of God, I have drawn from a time in my life when I felt totally abandoned by God. During that time, I learned that even when He seems to be far away, He is still Immanuel—the God who is with us.

In 1985 my husband lost his job of seventeen years. Although he made a six-figure income and we had no money worries, we had always lived modestly. Our lifestyle was not lavish by any standards, but, suddenly, without warning, everything was gone. For the next thirteen years we were destitute.

Having no income was scary enough, but I had ten children between the ages of fourteen years and two years, and I did not know how we were going to feed or clothe them. We had some savings and John’s retirement, but I knew that those would not last very long.

As I had come to know Christ better, I had tried to always live my life to honor Him. I made plenty of mistakes, but if I believed that He wanted me to do something, I did it—no matter how difficult. I could hardly accept that He had deserted us. I was not angry with God, but I was very sad. When I went to bed at night, I turned onto my side and cried silently. I decided that God must hate me. I know that belief stemmed partially from the fact that my own father deserted our family when I was only eight years old and I never saw or heard from him again. I became convinced that there was something about me that was so unlovable that no one—not even God—could love me. I had tried hard to be a good daughter to Him, and He had taken everything from us and turned His back.

One night as I lay crying myself to sleep I decided that I could not go on this way. I told God that I loved Him and I was going to serve Him, no matter what.  I said, “You are God, and you have every right to hate me because you are righteous, but I am never going to leave you. I have spent fifteen years doing everything that I believed you wanted me to do, and I can’t turn back now. If you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to kill me.”

Afterwards, I felt calmer than I had in a long while. I would like to tell you that everything immediately improved, but that is not what happened. I was only three months into the thirteen years, and the really rough times were still ahead of us. Nevertheless, I had settled in my own mind that my relationship with Jesus Christ is not about me; it is about Him. He is worthy to be worshiped; He is worthy to be praised; He is God.

Paul says, “When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore?...I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away….nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.” (Romans 8:35-39, Living Bible)

When we face life’s scariest moments, it is easy to feel that God has deserted us. It is then that we need to remember that just because we do not feel His presence does not mean that He is not present. We have His promise that absolutely nothing can separate us from His love.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” I cannot think of better advice for Christians everywhere. Each morning we must wake up with the knowledge that Jesus Christ is our source. Life is not about yesterday or tomorrow. Life must be lived one day at a time, relying on Him to supply our needs, to send other Christians our way so that we can fellowship with them, and to put the unsaved in our paths so that we may share our faith with those in need. And, through it all, we must always remember that we are never alone, for we serve Immanuel—the God who is with us.

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The Names of God--Part IV: The All Sufficient One

Long before I knew that the Bible contains many names for God that describe the various aspects of His personality, God revealed himself to me as El Shaddai—the All Sufficient One. That encounter changed my life.

In 1975 Alexandra, my oldest child, was approaching her fifth birthday. At that time John made an appointment to tour a Christian school in El Paso and reserve a spot for her so that she could be enrolled in the first grade the following year. The night before my husband’s scheduled tour, however, I had a dream that changed everything. In my dream God spoke to me, “Do not send the child to school lest she be corrupted. My wisdom is sufficient.”

When I awoke, I was very disturbed. Shortly after her birth my husband and I had decided to send Alexandra to this excellent Christian school.  As we had other children, we were equally certain that they would also attend the school; we had never considered doing anything else. Now, the night before that plan was to be set into motion, I had a dream that threatened to spoil everything.

I told John about the dream, and we agreed that he should cancel his appointment. We began praying about our situation and asking God for guidance. I found the entire dream puzzling, but the part that was most difficult for me to understand was what God meant by, “My wisdom is sufficient.”

After spending several weeks in prayer, we decided that I would teach the children at home. I was very frustrated because in 1975 homeschooling as we know it did not exist. There were no homeschool support groups and no other homeschoolers that I could locate. In fact, I did not meet another homeschooler for eight years after I began teaching my children. At that time the idea of a mother teaching her children at home was considered ludicrous.

Nevertheless, in 2000 my youngest child received his Master of Arts in the humanities through the independent study program with California State University at Dominguez Hills. My ten children had not only earned their master’s degrees through homeschooling, they had earned them at age sixteen.

Twenty-five years as a homeschooling mom had taught me a lot. Perhaps, the most important lesson I learned during those years teaching my children, however, is that God really is sufficient to meet all of our needs.

For a young mother with no teaching experience and only a high school diploma to undertake the task of educating her children from first grade through master’s degrees is ludicrous, but I was relying on God’s wisdom, not my own. Because of His guidance we were able to locate excellent schools at every grade level so that our program never lagged. Even though I gave birth to ten children in twelve years, I was able to keep both the school and the household running smoothly. I was able to study the subjects that were unfamiliar to me and learn them well enough so that I could teach them to my students in a simple straight-forward manner. Our family dealt with financial crises and serious illnesses, and, through it all, I was able to keep our school in tact and on schedule.

How did I do it? It’s simple. I am a very ordinary woman, but I serve a very extraordinary God, and He is more than sufficient to supply my needs. If I had been relying on my wisdom, I would never have been able to finish the race. In 1975 being obedient to God’s calling on my life required a step of faith on my part. Now I have experienced Him as the all sufficient one, and I know that He is sufficient in every circumstance.

If you have not yet met El Shaddai—the all sufficient one, I hope that you will take a step of faith and put your trust in Him. If you do, you will never be disappointed.

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The Names of God--Part III: The Lord Who is There

Long before we had our first child John and I made a commitment to Jesus Christ. We were new Christians and did not know exactly what living a Christian life entailed, but we were determined to try.  The result of that search was an encounter with Jehovah-Shammah—The Lord who is there.

In the Mid 1960s I worked as a secretary in a large bank building in downtown El Paso. Since I usually did not leave the building during my lunch break, I often picked up some yogurt at the concession stand on the first floor. Because I saw the woman who owned the stand nearly every day, we soon struck up a friendship. She often mentioned that she was making more money on her concession stand than she had ever dreamed possible, and from what I could observe of her rapidly expanding business I had no reason to doubt her claims.

One day she told me that a new Holiday Inn was being built downtown about three blocks from our building. The owner had approached her about putting in a concession stand at the Holiday Inn, but she felt that she could not run both. She told me that if I wanted the Holiday Inn concession stand, she could definitely get it for me. Then she added excitedly, “You will make a lot more money there than I do here because you will sell liquor.” She went on to say that there is a huge profit in selling packaged liquor. She would teach me everything I needed to know and help me get my business set up. I immediately felt uneasy about selling liquor, but I did not say anything. I told my friend that I would talk to John about it.

That evening I told John about this “business opportunity,” and he was very excited. However, John agreed that selling liquor might not be what Jesus would want us to do. The next day I told my friend that we would really love to have the concession, but we did not want to sell liquor. She responded that selling liquor was a condition of being awarded the concession.

John and I prayed and asked God if selling liquor would be okay, and for the next few days we constantly discussed the matter between the two of us. This was our reasoning:

If people want to drink, they are going to buy liquor whether we sell it to them or not.

1. We are not going to try to persuade anyone to buy liquor; they will be coming to us.    
2. Most of our sales will come from other items; everyone staying in a hotel needs toiletries, snacks, and reading material.
3. The people who buy the liquor will be taking it back to their rooms to drink it so, in a way, we will be keeping them safe by preventing them from driving drunk.

One evening when I came home from work I pulled a tri-fold flyer from the mailbox. Someone had circled a portion with a pen which read: “Satan never endorses God’s enterprises. God’s true friends never support Satan’s enterprises.”

John and I were blown away! The only ones who knew about our situation were John, me, and God!  We had received our answer. God had sent us mail! I kept the flyer for several weeks, and from time to time I took it out and looked at it. I was naïve, but I was pretty sure that there are no post offices in Heaven.

Finally, one day as I stood staring at the perfectly circled message, it dawned on me that since this was a tri-fold, maybe I should open it and see what was inside. When I did, I saw that it was from an acquaintance of ours who was a lay preacher in the Methodist church. He had circled his name and the time that he was going to be delivering a sermon in the church where the flyer had originated.  The date of his sermon had long since passed, but the ink had bled through and made a perfect outline around God’s message to John and me. The line was so sharp and circled those words so precisely that it was difficult to believe that this was not the message our acquaintance had meant to send.

Remember this: When you really, sincerely want to know something, all you have to do is ask God. He is Jehovah-Shammah—the Lord who is there, and He will answer—even if He has to send you mail.

 

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