I am because I AM

"God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."'" ~ Exodus 3:14

This is probably one of my favorite verses of the Bible.  For the first time in history, God makes Himself known by His name: I AM.  YHWH (Yahweh).  The LORD.  This was the name that the Israelites dared not speak nor write because it was considered too holy to be uttered by mortal lips or written by mortal hands.  But why is that His name?  Why is God simply "I AM"?

Well, I started thinking about verb conjugations last night as I was reminded of the post on the Beatitudes that I was supposed to be writing.  And as I traced I am back to to be, it hit me.  When we introduce ourselves, we say, "I am [insert name here]."  Notice how God's name enters that sentence?  Here's why I think that is: because in Him, we find our being.

I'm not talking about identity here.  I'm talking about existence.  Think about it: God made us.  We exist because He exists, and only because He exists.  Without God, we would cease to be; in fact, we never would have come into being in the first place.  I am because He is.

A few years ago I saw a video by Rob Bell where he relates the Holy Spirit to breathing.  In the beginning, God breathed the breath of life into man—a part of Him, His breath, entered into man.  The Spirit consumes us and gives us life, just as our breath does.  And in the same way that the Holy Spirit is the breath in our lungs that sustains us, God is our being.  His existence allows us to exist.  That's why we have to say His name when we say ours.  If He didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to say, "I am Michael."  I would have to say, "My name is Michael."  And that kind of takes away the human element.  I no longer exist as a being; I only have a name.  My name isn't who I am.  It's like the saying, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  You could call a rose a rock, but does that make it a rock?  No, it's still a rose.  So if God didn't exist, I could say that my name is Michael, but that wouldn't change the fact that I don't exist.

Even when we ask someone else, "Who are you?" we are taking God's name and applying it to that person by conjugating the verb to be.  To be is God.  That sounds nice and poetic, and Paul even says something similar when he says "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21), but it's such a profound idea that I can't wrap my mind around it.  I can't explain that four-word sentence except by saying that God is present in every moment of our existence.  But I know this: I exist because He exists.  I am because He is.  I am because the I AM is.  I am because I AM.