Wendy began today’s video with an apology to everyone who had trouble viewing yesterday’s vlog. She had the video set on private instead of public. She appreciates our grace and support as she gets this up and running. She loves being able to connect in this way, and even to share daily things like how cold it is in North Carolina - only 33 degrees!
Today she points out two new names for God.
Genesis 17:1, God introduces Himself to Abram in a new way - El Shaddai, God Almighty.
The second name appeared earlier in our reading. Looking back at Genesis 16 with Hagar and Sarai. Wendy shares how she has never understood fully the culture of that time, with Hagar having a child for Sarai, but Hagar was a servant and had to do whatever she could to help her mistress. Sarai’s plan to give her maid servant to Abram, backfired on her. The nation of Israel as a whole was affected by this addition to God’s plan, but He takes everything and works it for His glory.
Hagar didn’t really have a choice, and afterwards we see Sarai mistreating Hagar and the two women fighting is not a pretty scene. Abram basically said, look, she’s your maidservant, you deal with her. The mistreatment got so bad, Hagar decided to run and leave the situation.
Perhaps you can identify with Hagar. You’ve been in a situation before where you are tired and frustrated and you just want to get out of town. You need a change of scenery. That’s what Hagar was going for, she was leaving town, and Wendy says she doesn’t know if Hagar would have come back.
Genesis 16:9 says that an angel found Hagar. The angel asks her two questions: Where have you come from? Where are you going?
The angel told her to go on back and make the best of the situation and then gave her further information that Wendy can testify is probably not the best information for a mother to hear. The angel says she’s pregnant, going to have a son, that he’s going to be wild, hold up his fist to everyone and even be at hostility with his relatives.
Look at how Hagar responded. Hagar used “another” name for the Lord, implying she probably had a relationship with the Lord already. She says, You are the God who sees. “I have truly seen the One (Wendy points our the capital ‘O’) who sees.” In Hebrew this name is El Roi.
Don’t you love it that we have a God who is not only Almighty, but He is also One who sees. He sees our past, our present and our future and He loves us despite what we’ve done, what we’re doing and what we’re going to do. We have His Spirit within us and He will guide us if we would yield to Him.
He sees what’s coming in 2010! Wendy says she is more excited this year than any other year. God is up to something big and He is God Almighty, so He can do a big something!
Wendy hopes we’ll take these two names we’ve learned, El Shaddai and El Roi and we will pray in the name of El Shaddai, for His great and mighty power to come upon us; and that we’ll pray in the name of El Roi, the God who sees, that He would lead us where He wants us to go and that we would be willing to be there with Him.
(All thoughts transcribed from Wendy's blog to aid those whose computers are not capatible to view these videos.)
3 comments:
Thanks for doing this. I am able to get Wendie's vlg but I learn better if I read it than by listening to it, so this is very helpful. Also there are often several loud distraction running around my house!
Thanks again,
Suzy
I second Suzy's comment. Although I can view the vlog, having Wendy talking while my baby sleeps in my lap is not ideal - and that's the only time I have to get online. And I also get more by seeing it in print.
Thanks, Joy!
Sheryl
Joy,
I agreee w/ the prior posters! Thank you for doing this. You've done a great job summarizing the vlog, I can almost hear Wendy's voice.
Thank you for your faithfulness, dear sister.
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