He Is Series Day #4 El Shaddai (God Almighty)

He Is Series Day #4 El Shaddai (God Almighty) Genesis 17:1 “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.” Today’s name for God is El Shaddai. This means God Almighty. This verse is what God says to Abram right before He makes a covenant with Him and changes His name to Abraham. God promises Abraham that he will be the father of many nations and that his descendants will be too numerous to count. God made this covenant with Abraham 25 years before Abraham and his wife, Sarah, had a child together. I want to go into a bit of detail about this timeline because I have always heard that Abraham had to wait 25 years, but when I read further into Genesis Chapter 17, God tells Abraham that he will have the baby in one year. Here is a quick summary of the timeline. When Abram is 75 years old, God first calls him and tells him that he will be the father of nations. (Genesis 12:1-4) Then, after 15 years, Sarah gets tired of waiting and, honestly, probably starts to question whether the promise will come true. So, Sarah gives her handmaid to Abram, and they have a baby together. Abram is 86 when Ismael is born. (Gene 16:16) Then, 13 years later, God returns, and that is where this verse picks up. God changes their names to Abraham and Sarah and promises that Sarah will conceive within one year. At this point, Abraham is 99 years old. This is important to know because sometimes we think that if God is making a covenant with us and has a plan for our lives, then we will automatically see that plan come to pass. We start to doubt that God really has a plan for us when we don’t see immediate signs. Or maybe we are ok waiting for a few weeks or a few months, but what if we needed to wait 25 years? I am not a fan of waiting. God and I talk about this all the time. I am continually asking why we can’t go with my timeline rather than His. I am sure I am not the only one who asks Him this question. Do you ever feel tired of waiting? Do you ever wonder if it is really going to happen, since you have been waiting so long? I definitely know people who gave up hope that the thing they were praying for would happen. This is not unusual. It is hard to wait for God’s time. Even Abraham and Sarah, who were chosen by God to be the parents of nations, got tired of waiting for God to give them a baby and took it into their own hands. Have you ever done this before? Have you ever gotten tired of waiting for the Lord to find you the right boyfriend/girlfriend and settled for the wrong one? Have you ever decided to do something, even though you were pretty sure it wasn’t right, just because you wanted the dream to come true? When we force situations to fulfil God’s promises, instead of letting God fill them in His perfect timing, things never work out well. I know waiting is hard. It is especially hard if you are waiting on something that you feel has a time limit. For instance, if you want to have a family and you feel your biological clock is ticking, it may be very hard to wait on the Lord. And I know it is easy to say that Sarah gave birth long after her childbearing days were over, but it’s another thing to believe it can happen in this day and age. God will come through for you. It just requires a whole lot of patience to wait on Him. I have a friend who really wanted to be married and have a family. She was in her forties and feeling like it was never going to happen. However, she kept trying to hope that it would happen. She kept trying to believe God would come through and fulfill her deepest desires. This summer, she will have been married for two years to a man who is perfect for her. The two of them just make so much sense together. They even have the same sense of humor. It’s so sweet to see them together! God will answer your prayers, too! Whenever I said this name for the Lord in this episode, a song instantly came into my head. It is a great song to demonstrate how Almight our God is! The song is titled Good God Almighty and it is sung by Crowder. I am going to share that song with you now. [Verse 1] I can't count the times I've called Your name some broken night And You showed up and patched me up like You do every time I get amnesia, I forget that you keep coming around Yeah, ain't no way You'll ever let me down I love this verse because it reminds us that every time we call out to the Lord, He shows up. It also reminds us that we can cry out to him when we are broken; we don’t have to wait until we fix ourselves before we do. I also love the imagery when the song says, you showed up and patched me up like you do every time. God is going to come and help you every time. Not sometimes, not occasionally, EVERYTIME! I also like how it shows us we are not alone when we forget that God is there, or when we forget to call out to Him. We forget that God won’t ever let us down! [Chorus] Good God Almighty, I ...