But as for me, I will sing about your power.
    Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love.
For you have been my refuge,
    a place of safety when I am in distress.
O my Strength, to you I sing praises,
    for you, O God, are my refuge,
    Elohim Chaseddi.

Psalm 59:16-17

Elohim Chaseddi: God of My Mercy

David wrote this as a rabbit in a trap, a man under siege. His house, which should have been a place of safety, was surrounded. Men with orders to kill him had laid an ambush – perhaps because none of them dared challenge in open combat a man who had killed a giant? But that was their blindness, their folly, if so; the God who gave David victory then was no farther away now.

So they waited there for him to step out of his home, his refuge, out of his place of safety, and then they would attack! But like a turtle who carries his home with him always, David had a home they knew nothing about; God was David’s safe place, and He went with him everywhere.

When David’s sentence was death, then, God with His presence suspended it. When men would not show mercy, God stepped in. Mercy comes from God, not from men, because He is Elohim Chaseddi.

Listen to my prayer, O God.
    Pay attention to my plea.
For strangers are attacking me;
    violent people are trying to kill me.
    They care nothing for God. Interlude

But [Elohim Ozer Li].
    The Lord keeps me alive!
May the evil plans of my enemies be turned against them.
    Do as you promised and put an end to them.

Psalm 54:3-5

Elohim Ozer Li: God is My Helper

I wish I lived with the conviction of David. The man knew when he was right, and he wasn’t afraid to be. He knew because he was following God, and God is never wrong. So long as he stood on the side God stands on, he was right.

David’s Psalms can sometimes seem so one-sided to me, so vengeful and vindictive. “Let those people BURN!” kind of attitude – doesn’t that seem a bit… unmerciful? But David also had the kind of enemies he looked in the eyes, smelled their breath, heard their weapons tear through the air as they tried to rip his soul right out of his body. They came after him when he was tired and hungry and had to use the bathroom; they kept coming whether he fought or ran, whether he won or lost, whether he wanted to fight or not. At some point, we all tire of fighting. So maybe David was angry, maybe he was vengeful – but he was also tired, I think, and just wanted it all to end. He had fought enough battles to know some only end in death.

This is the moment when he cries out to Elohim Ozer Li. This is the moment we cry out to Him, too. The moment we’re too tired to carry on, when we don’t want the fight, when we just want it to end! But the good news? This was not David’s last psalm. This was not David’s last psalm. Because there was more to David than the look in his eyes, the smell of his breath, the sound of his sword. David was not fighting alone. God helped. And God – n-e-v-e-r – loses.

Declare me innocent, O God!
    Defend me against these ungodly people.
    Rescue me from these unjust liars.
For you are God, my only safe haven.
    Why have you tossed me aside?
Why must I wander around in grief,
    oppressed by my enemies?
Send out your light and your truth;
    let them guide me.
Let them lead me to your holy mountain,
    to the place where you live.
There I will go to the altar of God,
    to [El Simchath Gili].
I will praise you with my harp,
    O God, my God!

Psalm 43:4

El Simchath Gili: God of my Exceeding Joy (or God the Source of All My Joy)

What I love most about this name of God is where it is found. Psalms 42 and 43 speak so deeply to my heart because these declarations of faith in God’s goodness don’t come before the struggle or after the struggle, but in the midst. They’re like a rock tumbler of emotion; “I’m drowning in grief!” “God is my life!” “I’m so discouraged!” “God is my exceeding joy!” There is a fierce kind of faith that holds tenaciously to God’s goodness while it is being pummeled, and that is the kind I want.

Because. Because here it is – here in Psalm 43 is the moment the God-lover turns his eyes away from his hope that the world will bring him joy, and here he turns his eyes to God to do that instead. He knows where to go to find healing and joy: “Let them lead me to the place where You live.” God is love. Peace dwells in His presence, and He is the source of ALL our joy! Because Heaven is not some place where the streets are made of gold and soothing music fills them while people chat over a feast – no. Heaven is not a place at all; Heaven is a person, and wherever He is becomes Heaven because He is there.

That is a radical statement, so allow me to defend it. About a year ago, I posed this question to a room full of teenagers: “Imagine you are making plans for your Saturday, and you are invited to two events. An acquaintance invites you to go to a movie you’ve been dying to see with a group of people you don’t know very well and don’t have a lot in common with. Your crush invites you to go with him or her to volunteer to pick up trash along a trail in the blistering 90 degree heat as part of a community service project. Where are you going to go?” They didn’t even hesitate: to pick up trash, duh. Because who you’re with affects your enjoyment more than where you are or what you’re doing. Our hearts were made for relationship, and especially for relationship with God.

Why does the Bible talk about Heaven as a real place, then? Because it is. There is a place where God dwells fully visible to all, where He is the physical, visceral light, where He feasts with those He loves and walks down streets of gold, where the River of Life flows from His presence, where there is a house with enough rooms to house us all right there with Him. Because wherever God walks, life springs up around Him. Whatever His light falls upon becomes dazzlingly beautiful in Him. But none of it would be Heaven if He wasn’t there; it is Heaven because He is there. Perhaps I should say it like this, then: Heaven is not just a place; it is the place in the presence of a person, the person. El Simchath Gili, God of My Exceeding Joy! And if we know Him here on earth, though this mortal world and our sinful hearts may partially conceal Him, then we know a little of what Heaven’s joy is like. 🙂

Now I am deeply discouraged,
    but I will remember you—
even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,
    from the land of Mount Mizar.
 I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to [El Chaiyai].

Psalm 42:6b-8

El Chaiyai: God of My Life (or God Who Gives Me Life)

This defiant, raw faith is the reason I love the Psalms. For the past year or two, when I have been honest, I have described the way I’ve been feeling like this: caught in a riptide. I just get my feet under me before the next wave rolls back out to sea and takes the floor with it. It pulls me, and I fight with all my might, but I still feel I am losing ground. When all around my soul gives way… as your waves and surging tides sweep over me… I am clearly not the first to feel this way.

But each day! Each day! Day in, day out, no exception, “each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me.” This is not the God who makes things easy, but this is the God who gives me life. He is My wave breaker, My rock that doesn’t wash out to sea, the reason I am not washed away. He is the reason I live, but not just live; the life He brings is fresh and new every day and never fades. Everything fades but this. This life is not the fading life of earth! It is the eternal life in the presence of the God of Life – our God.

O Lord, I have come to you for protection;
    don’t let me be disgraced.
    Save me, for you do what is right.
 Turn your ear to listen to me;
    rescue me quickly.
Be my rock of protection,
    a fortress where I will be safe.
 You are my rock and my fortress.
    For the honor of your name, lead me out of this danger.
 Pull me from the trap my enemies set for me,
    for I find protection in you alone.
 I entrust my spirit into your hand.
    Rescue me, Lord, for you are [El Emet].

Psalm 31:1-5

El Emet: God of Truth (or The Faithful God)

Truth. Like diamonds. Solid, reflective, eternal. Brilliant in every sense of the word – and unyielding. The thing about truth is that it is; it is what it is, and nothing can change it. Put pressure on a lie, and it will begin to crack; the more pressure you put on the truth, the stronger it gets, and the more obviously truth-like it appears. Someone once said, “Only lies are invented; truth exists.” There is something so secure about truth. Stand upon it, and you will have no fear. Possess it, and you will call it a beautiful thing.

The problem with truth is that it is like diamonds; solid, reflective, eternal – unyielding. Rest upon it for too long and you will find yourself without an ache-free inch of your soul. You will feel like you have slept on a rock – because you have. There is no give to truth; it does not bend, so we must. It will never yield to our strength. Abiding in it, then, can be – is – painful. For this reason, so many have abandoned it. We must not do so. We must abide in El Emet, the God of truth, the God we can rely on, the Faithful and Truthful God!

I cannot condemn those who have lost heart. I would condemn myself, for the times I have, and the times I have yearned to do so. I do not condemn us, but I implore us to hold on. Gentler places will beckon, places that will mold themselves around us and slowly envelope and entomb us, and we will have no desire to resist, but we must resist. Truth is painful. Lies are lethal. 

Some people say it is hard to know truth from lies. Sometimes I have found this to be so, but not because they look so much the same. No, the fault does not lie in the objects being viewed; it lies in the heart from which they are viewed. To speak truthfully, I have almost never not known the truth, but I have often not believed it. As I said, lies crack under pressure; truth does not. It is easy to tell the truth from a lie if I want to – but do I want to? Truth is painful. This is why we sometimes favor lies – even when we know what they are.

Why do we want the truth? As I said at first, truth is secure, and creatures love security. Truth is courage, and confidence, and strength. Truth is power and above all, freedom! – but truth is not enough. 

As I have said, rest on truth and you will find yourself sleeping on a rock. That rock needs a cushion! Love is truth’s cushion. Love absorbs when truth deflects. Truth is painful, but it is made bearable by love. Love cannot be trusted without truth beneath it, however; love is only as good as its foundation. Founded on truth, love is eternal, secure, strengthening. Founded on lies, love, too, is lethal.   

The lies of this world – however loving or hateful – are growing more aggressive, demanding I believe them, thrusting themselves in my face and insisting I judge them true. I have only one defense against them, and it is the rarest and most valuable thing in the world; I have El Emet, the God of Truth. Now more than ever, it is His judgment that I must choose, for it is the only reliable, the only true. Praise El Emet for not leaving me in this mucky mess of lies!!

The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.
    [El Kahvohd] thunders.
    The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
    the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars;
    the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf;
    he makes Mount Hermon^[a] leap like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes
    with bolts of lightning.
The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake;
    the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks^[b]
    and strips the forests bare.
In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”

Psalm 29:3-9

El Kahvohd: The God of Glory

People talk so often of God as being that “still small Voice,” and He certainly often chooses to speak to us that way. But this God is not restrained to being a quiet God; this God can shake the very earth with nothing more than His voice!

Sometimes I think we (and maybe this is only the American church) have forgotten about El Kahvohd. Sometimes our irreverence, our lack of worship in His presence, our flippancy makes me think so. If we heard Him thunder, would we remember? Would we stand in His temple crying out, “Glory!” like the rest?

[Yahweh Ori] and my salvation—
    so why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
    so why should I tremble?
When evil people come to devour me,
    when my enemies and foes attack me,
    they will stumble and fall.
Though a mighty army surrounds me,
    my heart will not be afraid.
Even if I am attacked,
    I will remain confident.

Psalm 27:1-3

Yahweh Ori: The Lord is My Light

I think in our modern world in which we can simply flip a switch and dispel darkness, we easily forget what a big deal light is. A few days of a power outage might remind us how impenetrable darkness can be, but then the lights come back on and we forget again. But for all human history except the last 100ish years, darkness was a more formidable thing.

Of all our five senses, we rely on our sight the most; darkness is weakness, vulnerability, and that is why it makes us feel afraid. It is not silly to be afraid of the dark, though many of us think it is because we associate it with childhood. But here, the psalmist gives his reason for not fearing the dark, and he doesn’t say it’s because it’s a ridiculous fear. He says because the Lord his Light is with him, he is not afraid.

When I was a child, we went camping a lot. I remember a late night bathroom trip one night particularly vividly; I remember it because the path was thin, the night was dark, and we took only one flashlight. I wanted to carry it myself because I felt safest that way, but as I was easily distracted and tended to let the light wander off the path into the woods around us, my father politely declined my request and carried the light himself. I remember this night because I did get distracted and let my eyes wander, and when I did, my father got ahead of me with the light; I remember I could see the light bobbing several paces in front of me, but I could no longer see the path just beneath my feet. I could hear the sounds behind me and feel the dark pushing and throbbing and enclosing, and I ran, blind as I was, toward that one little oval of light. I walked practically on his feet the rest of the way!

That is how I see Yahweh Ori; the closer I stay to Him, the more I can see. With so much darkness in the world, I want to stay pressed up against His very feet!

Show me the right path, O Lord;
    point out the road for me to follow.
 Lead me by your truth and teach me,
    for you are [Elohim Ysuah].
    All day long I put my hope in you.
 Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love,
    which you have shown from long ages past.
Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth.
    Remember me in the light of your unfailing love,
    for you are merciful, O Lord.

Psalm 25:4-7

Ysuah: Savior and Deliverer

Where does obedience begin? It begins here, in Elohim Ysuah. It’s this relationship that too many minds and religions invert; so many of us believe we must obey to be saved, but this God says you must be saved to obey. Because I put my hope in You, the God who saves me, this says, show me the right path. Not because I’ve found the right path show me Yourself. Not because of what I’ve done – but because of Who You are. Because He is Elohim Ysuah, He who saves us Himself.

(I’m not really sure where the spelling Ysuah came from. The Hebrew interlinear I looked this up in spelled it isho-i, which from what I understand is where the name ieusho or Joshua comes from, which is also the same name we translate Jesus – which I have also seen Romanized as Yeshua. As far as I can tell, isho-i is spelled very differently in Hebrew than ieusho, so despite their similar Romanizations and meanings, these are not quite the same name.)

Open up, ancient gates!
    Open up, ancient doors,
    and let the King of glory enter.
 Who is the King of glory?
    The Lord, strong and mighty;
    [Yahweh Gibbor Milchamah].
 Open up, ancient gates!
    Open up, ancient doors,
    and let the King of glory enter.
 Who is the King of glory?
    The Lord of Heaven’s Armies—
    he is the King of glory. 

Psalm 24:7-10

Yahweh Gibbor Milchamah: The Lord Mighty (or Invincible) in Battle

David, who wrote this Psalm, knew the need of a God who is mighty in battle. He knew what it was to fight someone he could not beat, and he knew what it meant to utterly rely on the strength of someone he could not see.

My battles are not like David’s; I don’t look my enemies in the face as they openly mock my God, and they aren’t wielding spears as big as I am or laughing in my face for trying to fight them. They are quietly resistant to my faith, quietly slipping between me and the Lord I serve, quietly standing in the way. Sometimes I forget their strength and my weakness, and I forget from where my strength comes from; I try to fight them myself, and I lose when I do. The Lord is mighty in those quiet battles, too, though, and He conquers swiftly and quietly, too.

May I never forget to worship Yahweh Gibbor Milchamah for winning my battles, however quiet they might have been.

[Yahweh Rohi];
    I have all that I need.
 He lets me rest in green meadows;
    he leads me beside peaceful streams.
    He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
    bringing honor to his name.
 Even when I walk
    through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will not be afraid,
    for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
    protect and comfort me.
 You prepare a feast for me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
    My cup overflows with blessings.
 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
    all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Psalm 23

Yahweh Rohi: The Lord Is My Shepherd

This name of God is one that never loses its magnetism. It is the most profound argument against the disinterested God; this Shepherd, this Yahweh Rohi, is not some distant Being who created everything and just stepped aside and let it run its course. There are those who believe that if God made the world, He couldn’t have cared too much about it to let it turn out like this. I understand the place of hurt where this idea comes from too well to belittle it; I hope and pray healing for those hearts that are there today.

But God is not and never has been a disinterested God. Though we marred His world with our sin, He is right here in the thick of our lives making sure we get where we need to go to have all that we need. He is there to find us when we wander off, clean up the messes we leave where we shouldn’t, lead us to the resources that meet our needs, and sheer off our extra weight when it pushes us down. He calls to us and leads us through chaotic places by just the sound of His voice, and wherever He goes, we know we are safe. He is the One who knows us all by name.

He is Yahweh Rohi, my Shepherd Lord, my Caretaker.