the God who fights for me...

I love this...

I was reading the prophet Jeremiah a few weeks ago when I ran across a passage that referred to God as "the Lord Almighty." To be honest, it didn't resonate. There's something too religious about the phrase; it sounds churchy, sanctimonious. The Lawd Almiiiighty. It sounds like something your grandmother would say when you came into her kitchen covered in mud. I found myself curious about what the actual phrase means in Hebrew. Might we have lost something in the translation? So I turned to the front of the version I was using for an explanation. Here is what the editors said:

'Because for most readers today the phrases "the Lord of hosts" and "God of hosts" have little meaning, this version renders them "the Lord Almighty" and "God Almighty." These renderings convey the sense of the Hebrew, namely, "he who is sovereign over all of the 'hosts' (powers) in heaven and on earth, especially over the 'hosts' (armies of Israel)."'

No, they don't. They don't even come close. The Hebrew means "the God of angel armies," "the God of the armies who fight for His people." The God who is at war. Does "Lord Almighty" convey "the God who is at war"? Not to me, it doesn't. Not to anyone I've asked. It sounds like "the God who is up there but still in charge." Powerful, in control. The God of angel armies sounds like the one who would roll up His sleeves, take the sword and shield to break down gates of bronze, and cut through bars of iron to rescue me.
~John Eldredge

It's beginning to mean the world to me that my God is the One who summons His armies to fight for ME and rescue ME. This is all happening beyond the world that I can see, of course, but it encourages my heart so much to know that I am not supposed to fight for myself or come to my own rescue... there is already a very big Someone doing that on my behalf. I think I'm learning how to open my hands and let Him do the fighting... He seems to really want to do that.