How far is the distance between “God is…” and “God is my…?” The first is a belief; the second is a conviction.
Two of life’s most important questions are “Is there a God?” and “If so, what is he like?” Sitting in the sauna at our community center one day, I initiated a conversation with a young fellow “sauna sweater.” During our conversation, I raised my ensign flag, mentioning that God was an essential part of how I lived my life. After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Is he good?” I was surprised by the question since I assumed everybody believed that he was good if there was a God. However, this young man was not at all sure. Even for us, no matter where we are on our spiritual journey, the question of the nature of God is relentless. How we answer is life-changing.
Theology is the study of the nature of God revealed primarily through the narrative accounts of Scripture. The Bible either directly states or tacitly implies attributes about God. Because we so easily create a distorted caricature of God, we need to study and continually build an accurate biblical theology. However, once we have the correct theology, we also need to discover the reality of God through our own experience. We don’t start with our experience to form our understanding of God, but we do need to take the revealed truth of God and experience it in the laboratory of our ordinary lives.
God’s nature is revealed in several ways in Scripture. One is through statements where God describes himself and declares, “I am…” The most common declaration in the Old Testament is “I am the Lord your God.” A second way God reveals his nature is through the testimony of his people. The prophets often declare, “God is…” For example, Isaiah describes God in six ways in just one verse. “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the LORD of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth” (Isaiah54:5).
A third way Scripture describes God is through the personal “God is my…” I think the reason we find the Psalms refreshing, especially in a crisis, is that we get a mixture of the “God is…” and the “God is my…”: a combination of both belief and conviction.
Psalm 91 combines the God is… and the God is my…:
I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!” (3) For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper And from the deadly pestilence. (4) He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. Psa 91:2-4
Jesus declares, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11); the writer of Hebrews declares God is the God of peace and the great Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20), however in the familiar Psalm 23, David testifies, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” David discovered that the God who was the shepherd of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was also his shepherd.
David knew that between the God who is… and the God who is my… there is a gap that needs closing. That is why in Psalms 8:4, David challenges us to “… taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). It is an invitation to move beyond an intellectual belief to an experiential faith of personal conviction.
One of the ways God reveals himself to us in Scripture is through his names. Names in the Bible context are used not only for identification but for revelation. The names of God in Scripture are a way for God to reveal Himself in the form of a promise. When God called Moses to lead Israel out of captivity, Moses asked, “Who should I say has sent me?” God’s response was to give his unique, personal name: I AM. It was a promise to be all that Moses and the people would need along their challenging journey. God would replace the god caricatures acquired in Egypt with the character of the God of their fathers.
As I was growing up, church attendance was frequent and mandatory. In addition to multiple services on Sunday, there was one on Wednesday night. The Wednesday evening service was for the few highly committed adults and their reluctant children. I remember this venue consisting of a few piano-led songs, an “in-depth” Bible teaching by the pastor, followed by congregational prayer. But in between the songs and the message, the pastor would ask for “testimonies.” I could easily drift off into “la-la land” for most of the service but not during the testimonies.
People would stand up, often with tears, and tell how God had recently shown up in their lives. They told of answers to prayer, scripture verses made real, and God encounters worthy of praise. The in-depth Bible teaching was about the God is…, but the testimonies were about the God is my…
Recently I have reflected over the names of God using “God is…” statements in Scripture. Many of these names are given to God as a result of an encounter with God. Name that could be called testimonial names. The Song of Moses is an example. Reflecting on a 40-year journey in the desert, Moses wrote:
For I proclaim the name of the LORD; Ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He (Deuteronomy 32:3-4).
Earlier, when Moses, Joshua, and the people of Israel were victorious over the Amalekites, Moses built an altar to God and named it “The Lord is My Banner” (Exodus 17:15). The altar and name were a testimony of what God had done for them. They would be a reminder of what God would do for them in the future. The altar has long since disintegrated into dust, but God’s name lives on as a reminder of what he has done, can do, and will do for each of us who “call on his name.” The critical question is can we say, “He is my banner?”
There are specific names of God: Almighty, King, Creator, Jehovah, Lord, etc., and there are testimonial names such as my healer, my fortress, my shelter, or my lamp. Some of God’s names are formal such as the Christ (Matthew 1:16), while others, like a friend of sinners, are more implied (Matthew 11:19). Each name adds greater revelation and a different perspective to the nature and person of God.
Although there are over 100 names of God given in Scripture, they are not exhaustive, especially the testimonial names. A few years ago, while I was going through a challenging life chapter, I reflected on how God showed up for me. None of the familiar names seemed to fit what I was experiencing. I wanted him to be my deliverer, to get me out of the pain and struggle. But that was not how he showed up. Then a name came to me out of the boxing culture: Corner. A corner in the boxing world is a person permitted to be present in the fighter’s corner of the ring during a boxing match to provide advice and assistance to the fighter.
At that time, I felt like I was in a spiritual boxing match. When the bell rang, I would go to my corner of the ring, sit on my stool, and get assistance from my “Corner-man.” He would patch me up, give me instructions, pat me on the back, and send me back into the ring for another round. At the end of one particularly tough round, he whispered to me, “You are dropping your left hand (of faith). Keep it up! Lead with it. You are back on your heels and too defensive. Move to the offense. Lead with the promises I have given you.” Then the bell rang, and I was once again back in the fight.
Leaning into the character of God at defining moments along our journey of faith closes the gap between belief and conviction, between the God is… (concept), and the God is my… (experience).
For Reflection
1. What aspect of God’s nature has been evident in your life recently?
2. Has there been a time in your life when the Good Shepherd showed up in such a way that you would say, He is my Shepherd?”