Center of It Allഉദാഹരണം

When I think about the “Name” of the Lord, there are some Bible passages that start to come to mind. Passages like Exodus 3. Here, God has asked Moses to take the lead on rescuing the Israelites from the Egyptians, and Moses becomes a man of excuses. Now let me say quickly that I understand. Depending on the message to be delivered or the question to be asked, I, too, can see myself as a hesitant participant. See Jonah! Have you ever heard someone say, “you know better?” I feel like I heard that saying most days of my junior high life. It could be any situation, homework, house chores, behavior at church or with friends. Often, I felt as if I couldn’t escape the phrase! No matter where I went or what I did, I would hear, “you know better.” Sometimes I said it to myself. I remember being in college and enjoying life. I went to a 4-year Christian college and loved it. I had friends, and we would frequent the student center because that’s where everything seemed to happen. There was a fast-food grill, air hockey, pool, and table tennis. There was this circular desk where you could check out paddles, table tennis balls, pool balls and pool sticks. I had a good friend who was very competitive and more athletic than me. I googled how high the average kitchen island is, and it said 36 – 42 inches. If I were guessing, I would say the height of that circular desk was about 39 – 40 inches tall. My friend and I were playing table tennis, and he was beating me badly. And he beat me repeatedly. I was not having as much fun as I could. Then he “upped the ante” by walking over to the circular desk and, flat-footed, he just leaped upon the desk, landed with both feet on the desk and then hopped down. Then came those words, formed in a question that left a literal physical mark on my body till this very day. “I bet you can’t do that?” At the time, given my mental state after receiving several losses at the hand of my friend in table tennis, I just couldn’t let that challenge go unanswered. He saw that I was contemplating the challenge, and I believe he realized something about me that I, personally, did not have the good sense to recognize myself. And that is, that on the best day of my life at my peak physical conditioning (which was not that day), I had maybe a 15-inch vertical. Before he could do anything to stop me, I was standing next to the circular desk. I was bending down to create the needed spring in my attempt to complete the mission. I jumped up and that’s when I heard myself say to me, “you know better.” However, the message to myself from myself was a few seconds too late. I did not complete said challenge, and my left shin, over 30 years later, still bears the mark of my failure.

Now, back to Exodus 3. The Lord said, “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” To me, the response to this command is, "Yes, Father." At the very least, you might ask for God to repeat it. But you do not, under any circumstance, ask the questions that Moses asked. He asked questions like: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” and “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

Now, before I get to how God responded, let me ask: do you ever question God? Has God asked you to do something, and you understood the task immediately, but you felt the need to ask “clarifying questions?” I know I have. I have felt like Habakkuk asking, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help?” Or like the expert in religious law asking, “And who is my neighbor?” There is nothing wrong with asking questions. It is even alright to ask God questions. The song “Center of It All” starts with the lyrics, “You were there, before start. You formed the heavens out of the darkness. And from the dust, You moulded us into existence, a holy image.” The song reminds us of who God is and the part He plays in everything. That part is Creator. Because of God, we are. There has always been God, we were created. So, when Moses (essentially) asks God, what should I tell them Your name is? God’s response is “I AM who I Am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The Israelites and Moses should be satisfied with that answer. The answer of who God is can be found in all the ways God has cared for us, loved us, and sustained us. The interesting part about this story is Moses should’ve understood who God was at this point. Surely Moses remembered the story of how he was delivered from the Egyptian male massacre and raised by his own mother. Well, to clear up any more confusion, God says, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Issac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you’. “This is my name forever; the name you shall call me from generation to generation.” The answer to the questions we have about life: who will be there for me in valleys and on mountain tops, in gain or in loss, in sickness or in health? Who will save us from our own sin? The answer to all these questions is God. “The Name that’s greater than the mountains high, and closer than the valleys low, the author and the Center of it all.”