Devotion - June 27

Our Saturday devotion is from Music Director Anthony Spain - thank you Anthony!

Psalms 131-135, Proverbs 27

Reality check - “El Shaddai” by Amy Grant is now almost 40 years old- really you might ask? Yes, as it was released in 1982.

I distinctly remember where I was when I first experienced this song. At the time, I was touring throughout the west and mid-west with a Christian music group, and was in the middle of a busy 60 concerts tour (in only about 65 days). Somehow finding a moment of solitude on a quiet lake in the middle of the Colorado Rockies, I began to listen to the album “Age to Age”, by the then up and coming singer Amy Grant. This album would become the first Christian album by a solo artist to be certified gold (1983) and includes “El Shaddai.”

Unusual for a Christian song, “El Shaddai” includes much Hebrew, and the title is a Judaic name for God- usually translated to God Almighty. The song begins with the words-

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonia,
Age to age you're still the same,
By the power of the name.


As I was reminded by these opening lines many years ago during that quiet moment in the Colorado Rockies, even when life is difficult and seems to swirl around us, (and it did for me back then as my mother had died not long before), God remains the same, is constant, and remains at the center of things.

We don’t understand this fully, or how, at times, but Oswald Chambers reminds us- “Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what he is doing, you know Him… Faith is the supreme effort of your life—throwing your-self with abandon and total confidence upon God.”

“El Shaddia” by Amy Grant reminds us of the constant quiet strength of God in any age, and in any situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8jzzPFNi84
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