Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 68 · March 9
The Name He Gave
“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”
How long have you been asking God for something you could hold on to? Maybe it is a clear answer about the job, or a name for what is wrong with your health, or just one sentence you could write down and carry back to the people who are waiting on you.
Moses wanted a name, and he had a practical reason. God was sending him to a people who had spent some four hundred years in Egypt, and they would want to know which God had sent him: "What is his name? what shall I say unto them?" In that world a name was like a handle. It told you who you were dealing with, what that god ruled over, and what to expect. The answer Moses got was a sentence built from the verb "to be": "I AM THAT I AM." The same Hebrew can also mean "I will be what I will be," because its verb really can carry both. Then God gives a short form that Moses could carry into a room: "I AM hath sent me unto you."
Now go back three verses and see what has already happened. Moses had asked, "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?" God's answer was about Himself: "Certainly I will be with thee." In Hebrew that is the same verb. Moses asked about himself, and God told him He would be there. Moses asked for God's name, and God told him the same thing again, in three Hebrew words built from that verb of being. Twice Moses reached for a definition, and twice God gave him His presence.
You may never get the sentence you wanted to take back to the people waiting on you. What God offers is older and deeper than that, and it will not fit into a text message. He is with you right now, and He will be there at the thing you are dreading on Thursday. Take that with you when you walk in, and find out for yourself that it holds.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 68 is Christ Our Life (Colossians 3:4).