I Am Who I Am

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 18, I Am Who I Am.

"God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' And he said, 'Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 3:14.

This scene starts in an almost unremarkable way. Moses is out in the wilderness, tending sheep — his father-in-law's flock, not even his own. It's repetitive work, ordinary, the kind he'd already been doing for forty years. And it's right in the middle of that ordinary day that he notices a bush on fire — but not burning up. God loves to interrupt the ordinary. Often it's exactly there, in the middle of the plainest routine, that He chooses to show up.

Moses draws near, and God speaks to him out of the fire. And after calling him to an enormous mission — leading an entire enslaved people out from under Egypt's hand — Moses asks the obvious question: "If they ask me your name, what do I tell them?"

And God's answer is one of the most profound things in all of Scripture: "I AM WHO I AM."

Notice this isn't really a name in the way we usually think of one. It's not like "John" or "Anna," a label that distinguishes one person from another. It's a declaration of absolute existence. God isn't saying "I am strong" or "I am good" or "I am faithful" — though all of that is true. He is saying something more fundamental: I simply Am. I don't depend on anything to exist. I was not created, I have no beginning, I don't need to be compared to anything to be defined. Everything that exists, exists because I Am.

And notice the tense: present. Not "I Was" — as if God were just a memory from the past, something the patriarchs knew but that now feels distant. And not "I Will Be" — as if His presence were a promise reserved only for some future day. I Am. Now. With Moses, in that wilderness, in front of that bush. And with you, today, in the middle of your most ordinary routine.

And there's another detail that changes everything for Moses: he doesn't go to Egypt on his own authority. He, who stammered, who was afraid, who felt far too small for the mission — he goes sent by I AM. It isn't Moses confronting Pharaoh. It's I AM sending a messenger. That difference changes the whole weight of what he was about to face.

And this name doesn't stay locked in the Old Testament. Centuries later, Jesus will stand before the religious leaders and say about himself: "Before Abraham was, I am." Same phrase. Same declaration of eternity. Same glory — now revealed in flesh, walking among us. The God of the burning bush and the Jesus of the gospels are the same I AM.

So today, before breakfast, I want you to do something simple. Sit in silence for one minute — just one minute. And say out loud: "I AM is with me now." Not in the past, not only in the future — now, this minute, this ordinary morning you're about to live. And then, hand Him your hardest task for today. That conversation you've been avoiding. That decision weighing on you. Hand it over — because the one sending you isn't you, it's I AM.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.