The Names of God: Jehovah Shalom
Meg Chaney
“When Gideon realized that He was the Angel of the Lord, he said, ‘Oh no, Lord God! I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face!’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Peace to you. Don’t be afraid, for you will not die.’ So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it Jehovah Shalom”
In Judges chapter 6, the Israelite nation has been oppressed by the Midianite people. A man named Gideon is busy in his field, trying to thresh wheat and hide it away from their oppressors. An Angel comes to him saying,
“The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”
This is a funny greeting for Gideon, who feels nothing like a great warrior. In fact, he is pretty quick to say that his family is of the smallest and weakest of the Israelite nations. He doesn’t look or feel like a mighty warrior. He’s at a point where he’s wondering where the LORD has even been during all their suffering. He’s feeling forgotten, weak, and alone. Yet, he brings meat and bread and offers them to the Lord. The Angel reaches out his staff and fire consumes the meat and bread.
And then, Gideon realizes what has taken place, that He had just been face to face with an angel of the Lord. And so he calls that place “Jehovah Shalom” The God of Peace.
Isn’t that interesting? In the midst of persecution, in the middle of a place where Gideon wonder where God’s deliverance even is, God shows up bringing His peace.
It seems so opposite, but at the same time, so completely needed. So relevant.
That’s the kind of God we serve.
A God who is peace in the midst of trials, Peace in the midst of suffering, Peace, in His ability to call us out to new, giant, seemingly impossible things. He is the God of a type of peace that passes all understanding.
He sees us in the midst of our trials. In the midst of our days. We may feel incredibly small and insignificant. We may even feel like our “trials” for the day, really aren’t that big in comparison to the vast problems of the world around us. We feel small, rather worthless. But God sees so much more. He sees promise. He offers peace, the very thing we didn’t even realize we needed.
“ Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
If I was Gideon, I would be tempted to stay in that field, threshing wheat. It was a small, predictable life. It didn’t involve big things. But God was offering Him Peace, and so much more. God was calling Him to new, scary things. And He was offering peace to guard His heart and mind along the way. My small, relatively comfortable life? It may be easy, but something God starts to call me to more. And that starts my hands shaking. It makes me nervous. Do I want to accept such peace? Do I want to accept all that God’s offering, with the acknowledgement that with that will come brand new battles to undertake.
Yes, in fact I do.
So I’m so thankful that His peace surrounds me every new step of the way. I’m so thankful it guards my heart and my mind. My heart, because new things are scary, my mind, because it will try to feed me all kinds of lies about how small and insignificant I am. My mind will question. And that’s why I need His protection, His peace, before I even begin the first step.
Peace, peace that guards my heart and mind through each new, exciting, brilliant, hard thing up ahead.
I pray you all can experience such peace this week. Peace that guards your heart and minds. Peace that shows up, wherever you may be.
Lord, we thank you that your Peace covers us, each and every day. You have such amazing, new things up ahead for us. We pray that our minds would focus on what is right and true, and that our hearts would be filled with your peace and love.