The Name That Answers Every Question

Exodus 3:14. Moses has just asked God for a name, and the answer is "I AM WHO I AM." Whole libraries have been written on those words. At the simplest level they tell us that God is not defined by anything outside himself. He does not exist because of something else; he simply is. He is not the god of a place, or a function, or a season. He is the one who is, and who will be whatever he needs to be for his people.

Why does that matter on a Saturday in August? Because most of our fears assume that our situation defines what is possible. Moses certainly thought so. He had a stammer, a criminal record in Egypt, and forty years of obscurity. God's answer to all of that was not a plan but a name.

When Jesus said to his opponents that before Abraham was born, he is, in John 8:58, he was claiming this name. The one who spoke from the bush is the one who speaks in the Gospels. Whatever you are facing, the question is not what you are. It is who is sending you.