El Shaddai

If you were to create a god for yourself, what would he be like?  If you're anything like me, you'd make one that was almost completely kind and merciful to you and almost completely righteous and holy for everyone else.  We want a moral god who judges the sin of others, but a kind god who overlooks our own sin.  Am I right? 

But here's the thing:  He is beyond our wildest dreams in His kindness and His righteous holiness.  Just look at the name El Shaddai, literally God Almighty.  Yet this name means more than mere power, it means "power to save". 


The root word shad is the Hebrew word for "breast".  Think what that implies, you nursing mothers.  Think of the richness, the deep satisfaction of a baby getting full nourishment from its mother's breast.  Ephesians 3:20 reminds us that He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.  This, ladies, is lavish love. 


When God first identifies Himself as El Shaddai, He is speaking to Abram:  I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly (Genesis 17:1-2).  Though He calls Himself God Almighty, there is nothing here of the usual power and might we think of as God's.  Instead, we see a God who keeps His covenant with man, and blesses Him abundantly. 


In fact, the first 5 times we see this name, it is related to the fruitfulness that God sends, the multiplying He does among them. 


So we have a God that lavishes His love on us, who does not hold our sins against us, though we have sinned grievously against Him and His holiness.  Praise God, He's better than we could ever have hoped for. 


Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands  (Isaiah 49:15-16).


Engraved, indeed.  In the very palms of the Savior's hands.  Praise El Shaddai, the God who is mighty to save.