YHWH Maozi

Names of God – Part 36

The LORD my fortress

YHWH is God’s actual name which he revealed to Moses from the burning bush, it implies the personal nature of God.

The second part of the name here is how God relates to us:

The names of God tell us something about God’s character, about what god is like, but they are also relational, about how we relate to God or God relates to us. This one is the latter, taken from the book of Judges, and speaks of God as a protector, but it is also the former, God is where we go to find shelter, as David found in 2 Samuel 22.

God is the refuge – I go to in the bath. This might sound odd, but when we had children running around the house, and having three children we were always outnumbered, the bathroom, literally a bath-room, with a locked door, water as hot as I could stand and bubbles, was the place I could be quiet and not disturbed in order to meditate, which sounds serene and calm, but sometimes you have to pour your heart out to God, or God says things through what you are meditating on that do anything but calm you. These unquiet time, when your meditations and prayers are unrestful, are often times of spiritual growth.

But the refuge that is God isn’t somewhere we hide from the world, cowering from the onslaught going on outside. It is where we have joy. “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” says Nehemiah 8:10, the word translated strength is maozi, the same word used for refuge. At a time when the Jews had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, despite persecution, the Law had been read they were told about joy: The persecution was still there.

God’s refuge, even in a time of trouble, even in my bath when working through the implications of being disabled, can be a time of joy. Joy in the problems. God is with us through our problems.

Whatever you are facing today God, YHWH Maozi, provides a refuge, a fortress. Are you willing to take refuge in him?