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El Shaddai, God Almighty
That’s 1000% correct! (But that isn’t.)
In our finite minds we say and think things that just are far from what is real, so very often. We just have to start here: when anything whole gets to one HUNDRED percent, it’s all there is. There is no more. I get the desire to want an emphasis on ALL, but 100% encompasses everything there is possible to that one whole thing: 100%, ALL. When we are considering one whole something or someone, nothing beyond 100% is possible, and that’s important to realize. ALL: Everything of any and each whole thing.
Sufficient
I looked through an online thesaurus for help explaining the word sufficient, this divine kind of sufficiency , and I read word after word: ample, bountiful, generous, prolific, abounding, chock-full, plenty, lavish… and while each term offers a glimpse of the truth here, I kept coming up short.
sufficient
adjective
adequate for the purpose; enough: sufficient proof; sufficient protection.
dictionary.com
The Missing Part
Then I went back to God’s Word, verse after verse and read again and again of El Shaddai, and then it hits me. I get it now. The missing part in my quest was in that little three letter word, a-l-l. El Shaddai, All Sufficient God. When we put all and sufficient, together, we’re left with: 100% of everything needed for the purpose.
Almighty God, El Shaddai, shows up much over the Old Testament.
When almost 100 years old, Abram’s faith is fortified again to walk with All Mighty God.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.
Genesis 17:1
And Isaac admonishes The All Mighty’s blessings over Jacob:
And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people
Genesis 28:3
El Shaddai, Almighty God returns to Jacob with promise of His blessings:
God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel. ” So he named him Israel.And God said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation—even a company of nations—shall come from you, and kings shall descend from you.…
Genesis 35:10-11
The Lord refers to Himself as the one they knew: God Almighty, El Shaddai and then introduces Himself as Jehovah, (Yahweh):
God also said to Moses, “I am the LORD. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
Exodus 6:2-3
And He gives us the promise of El Shaddai for all our todays:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1
And I love this definition from Biblehub:
God Almighty – אל שדי El Shaddai, the all-sufficient God, the Outpourer and Dispenser of mercies
biblehub
Dispenser of Mercies
I’m going to encourage you to pause this podcast or your reading here in a minute. Get ahold of your phone’s note app, or grab a paper and pen. Ask the Lord to clear your mind of everything else for a couple of minutes and start jotting down some of the struggles you’ve known in the recent, or not so recent, past.
All Sufficient
See? I’m conflicted here to list my own, those of people I care most about or just to let the Holy Spirit sit with you over your own list…yes, I think I’ll do that. So, my loving encouragement is this, look over each thing you wrote down and search through each one.
Somehow, through the toughest places in your life, can you realize the outpouring of mercies and can see the presence of Almighty God, El Shaddai? Don’t go on until your heart can revisit for a moment and remember the goodness of God in your pain. I praise the Lord that He is indeed all sufficient, and always faithful to be so.
In A Heartbeat
Maybe because I’m getting older, but there’s no shortage of valley walk times that come to mind. Going way back, I wasn’t yet 30 years old, that would come right after my firstborn’s birth, after trying for five or so years, we were finally pregnant.
(My husband went to my prenatal appointments with me, and at the first one my OB looked across his desk and said him, “Don’t say, ‘We’re pregnant,’ because YOU are not,” but to us, we were-therefore the “we.”)
Things sure can change in a heartbeat, can’t they? There we were, excited and, well, the me part of we was pretty sick. Ugh, those days were long, and I bet many of you can relate. We went in for an early ultrasound because I’d been bleeding pretty badly.
Then, after all the prodding, the turning of the screen and her head, the sonographer decided to speak.
No Heartbeat
Right this minute I can again hear the hollow echo of the room bouncing her words back and forth rapidly between my ears and my pounding heart, “There’s no heartbeat; the baby is not viable. Come back in three weeks.”
All I remember in my shock and disbeliefe is asking her how I could be so sick if the baby wasn’t growing. Maybe I never even vocalized the thought.
Somehow I left the hospital walking on my own two feet, and I’m sure my husband’s hand was tightly wrapped around my own. You couldn’t have convinced me that the hallways didn’t grow longer, and the parking lot didn’t move farther away as we put managed to walk away, one step in front of another.
I never knew how long three weeks could be. But I was about to learn more than I’d ever known about El Shaddai, my Almighty God, 100% of everything needed for the purpose.
Turns out, that little heartbeat was rapidly blinking away when I lay on that table 3 weeks later. It was the miracle we’d prayed for, and through each long day Almighty God was there with me. I’m thankful to this day-and every day-for that moment some 27 years ago.
Right from the start, that boy stole my heart!
Almighty in the Valleys
However, as I told you, I’m getting older and you can bet your life that mine has been tested in these years gone by. Sometimes, my miracle came in a much different way than I’d desperately prayed, but the overwhelming mercies El Shaddai, Almighty Lord gave met in the valleys are just as precious to my heart and to my faith.
I don’t know if you’re hiding under the shadow of His wings or singing the praises of overwhelming mercies barreling all around you right now, but I do know this. God is all sufficient; 100% of what we need, He is, every time.
He is to not going to leave us alone. He is not going to come up short. And He is able this day as He was when talking to Abram thousands of years ago to fulfill His promises to us as we abide in Him.
Abide
Abide is a verb. It means the subject has to participate. No matter where you find yourself, abiding in Him is where we need to be. Meet Him at the foot of the cross and in the shadow of the Almighty-Come on! Let’s go.
Run…crawl, or whatever you need to do, and get there to the secret place of the most high: Abide in Almighty God. Be still. Rest. Believe. Wait. Refresh. Remind yourself of this word and the truth:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty
Psalm 91:1
Abide right there, always, in the shadow of El Shaddai, God Almighty.
