The Names of God: El Olam

El Olam: The Everlasting God

Psalms 90:1-2

[A Prayer of Moses the man of God.]

1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Isaiah 40:28

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

I like to do a series with the blog posts because it focuses my thoughts and writing rather than just writing about random thoughts. And I like the series posts because when I'm done with one I immediately begin thinking about the next. Sometimes this means I have the next post up in a couple of days but usually it's a week. But everyday for that week I am thinking about the next post in the series and how my life factors in to what I'm studying about. I know I probably sound redundant at times because I write about losing Lachlan and my other babies, about the changes in Brandon over the last 3 years, about my fears and dreams for my boys - but I can only write what I know, what I feel, what I see. I can only write my story because God has given it to me to use to glorify Him.

So this week as I thought about El Olam, the Everlasting God, and my story, I was overwhelmed at the magnitude of what this name of God means.

It simply means that God and all He is, all He represents, all of His promises are eternal, without end, lasting forever. His love. His mercy. His forgiveness. His grace. His compassion. His comfort. His shelter. His longsuffering. His glory. His goodness. His gentleness. His hope. His faith. His peace. His redemption. His righteousness. His joy.

We could never deserve Him. Never work to gain His favor. Never be good enough for His eternal and everlasting greatness. 

And yet in all His eternal majesty He still created us, still spared us from the flood, spared us from hell by sending His only begotten Son. He loved us more than we could possibly fathom. 

El Olam has been our dwelling place in all generations, from beginning to end. 

He fainteth not, neither is He weary. He never tires of hearing our problems but He deserves our praises. He never tires of comforting our sorrows but He deserves our sacred songs. He never tires of loving us in spite of our sins but He deserves our lives to be lived in fear and service, truth and love of Him.

There is no searching His understanding. We cannot know in this life why He chose to send Jesus to die for our sins, aside from eternal love. But He did choose to. Before the mountains were brought forth, before He formed the earth and world, the everlasting to everlasting God knew my story and chose to send His Son to die so that I could tell it. 

I Just Wanted You To Know

You made dry ground where once were oceans 

Where once were mountains You made them low 

Where there were stones, now there is water 

You satisfy my thirsty soul 

There's strength in knowing You are near me 

That peace that You, alone bestow 

I love You more today than ever and I just wanted You to know 

Where there is fear Lord You will hide 

when winds of danger around me roll 

I feel your arms of grace around me and I just wanted you to know 

All those times I've seen your glory 

And how You've conquered my every foe 

My love for you is overflowing 

And I just wanted-- Lord I just needed! 

My heart is longing for You to know... 

and I just wanted You to know

The Names of God: El Elyon

El Elyon: The Most High God

Genesis 14:19 KJV

And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

I have had a difficult time this week determining just exactly where the Lord wanted me to go with this post. There were several ways I could have gone. 

I thought about addressing the abomination of the Bruce Jenner sex change. The Most High God does not make mistakes in creation. He knows us within our mother's womb, knows our very frame and the numbers of hair on our heads, He bottles the tears that we shed. He does not create us as females trapped in males bodies. The very idea of that someone suffers from this because they were born that way is ludicrous. It is a mental illness that should be treated as such.

I thought about the last 4 weeks in my family's life. My niece was hospitalized with high blood pressure at nearly 37 weeks pregnant and several stressful days later she welcomed a perfectly healthy, beautiful and tiny baby boy into the world. 2 of my great aunts, they are sisters, were diagnosed with cancer on the same day. Neither prognosis was good. We attended the funeral of 1 today while the other recovered from surgery at home. Last week I completed my first round of fertility treatments and now we begin the agonizing 2 week wait to take a pregnancy test. My Daddy and my Papaw are each having heart procedures done tomorrow. Routine procedures but heart surgery nonetheless. And El Elyon, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth as Genesis 14:19 proclaims Him to be, is in control of it all.  Each and every situation. And yet it can be so hard to put our faith in Him when the most stressful moments of life are upon us. We so quickly forget what the Most High God is truly capable of.

But tonight, as I stood to hear the reading of God's Holy Word in our church service, the Holy Ghost whispered to me. My Pastor read from Hebrews 12:1-3, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." El Elyon, the Most High God was brought to the lowest of low for you and I.  

The weight of this world, the sin and the abomination that bombards us through every media outlet available, the worries of this flesh life and body, need be laid aside. When we find ourselves gossiping about the sins of one celebrity or another, instead of praying about the sin in our lives or praying for their souls, we are weighting ourselves down. When we find ourselves in a panic or on the verge of a nervous breakdown about a family member's health, our own desires, or even the stresses of working and paying the bills, keeping the house clean and the yard mowed, we are weighting ourselves down. We cannot run the race that has been set before us with the weight of the world on our shoulders. 

So what must we do? 

We must look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, the Son of El Elyon, the Most High God, and we must remember what was done for us. When we are wearied and faint we must remember what was endured for our sake. El Elyon came in the flesh as Christ Jesus. The Highest of Highs became as the lowest of lows when He was born as a babe in a manger. Though perfect and sinless, He was born into a world of sin and wickedness, He endured the cross and the contradiction of our sins upon His innocence. And He did it with joy. He did it so that when we are weary and burdened we can remember, we can feel it deep within our souls, His love and what His sacrifice means for us. It means that no matter how heavy the weight of this world is we do not have to bear it alone. We can cast it aside and look to Him, El Elyon, the Most High God.