What Does It Mean to Yada God’s Name?
Have you ever flown over a desert? On a recent flight, I viewed a vast section of Death Valley in the barren Mojave Desert—one of the hottest places on earth. I felt the urge to ring the flight attendant for a drink of water, and I longed for my ultimate destination—the lush islands of Hawaii. The dusty landscape below reminded me of times when my soul felt as dry and barren as the ground.
Have your circumstances made you feel like you’ve been cast into Death Valley? Are you or a loved one enduring a trial that has withered your soul? Or maybe you’re suffering what feels like tiny, but endless, torrents of fiery darts. No matter our trials, the solution for our parched and weary souls isn’t different circumstances. It’s not even Hawaii. The answer is knowing the name of the Lord.
Those who know your name trust in you
because you have not abandoned
those who seek you, LORD. (Psalm 9:10)
Those Who Know Your Name
For years, I didn’t realize I’d mentally reversed the order of the two steps in this verse. I made trust the cause and knowing God’s name the effect. As in, “Those who trust God know His name.” While this is biblically true, it’s not the original word order nor King David’s original point. Instead, David emphasized that those who know God’s name thereby trust in Him.
Once I realized the correct order, I struggled to believe the verse. After all, Satan and the demons know God’s name but their darkened hearts do not put their trust in Him. This verse became like Greek to me, except it’s actually Hebrew. David wrote “Those who yada [know] your name trust in you.”
What Does it Mean to Yada?
I laughed when I first saw the original Hebrew word yada. I’d always assumed it was a made-up term. I often use the phrase, “Yada, yada, yada!” to mean, “so on and so on and so on,” which is why David surprised me when he used yada in Psalm 9:10. Maybe (at least in this verse) the word know didn’t mean what I thought.
I was viewing the word know from an intellectual standpoint—such as how I know my ABCs. I discovered, however, that in King David’s ancient Hebrew culture “to know” meant more than mere cognitive awareness. It included a deep and personal understanding.
To yada God’s name means to hold an intimate comprehension of His true character, nature, and ways. It speaks to knowing and believing—from the depths of our soul to the outworkings of our hands and feet—who God is and what He’s said. This type of knowing reaps the fruit of confident faith in our unfailing Lord, like a trusting child with a faithful father.
When we, as God’s children, know His name—when we yada our strong Father’s unchanging character, perfect nature, and faithful ways—our hearts rest in Him. As trials swirl around us, we will cast our trust and hope on Him because what we yada about our promise-keeping God assures our quivering heartsthatHe will never abandon us. He will never forsake those who seek Him!
This truth causes streams of living water to soothe our parched souls like the Amargosa River that runs through Death Valley. Knowing God’s name pours life- and faith-giving refreshment into even our hottest trials and most barren circumstances.
How can we come to yada God’s name like David? Let me share four ways.
Four Ways to Yada God’s Name
1. Receive Christ’s salvation.
It’s not enough to know the facts about God or the gospel to save us. We can know and even agree that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died on the cross to satisfy God’s wrath for our sin, rose on the third day, and conquered sin and death (1 Cor. 15:1–11). We can even call Him, “Lord, Lord!” (Matt. 7:21–23). An intellectual acknowledgement won’t save us. God saves through faith in His Son and His saving work on the cross.
Have you truly placed your faith in Christ for salvation? Have you confessed your sinful state and turned from it to embrace Jesus as the one and only Savior—one of His most important names? If not, trust in Christ today and receive His salvation (Rom. 6:23; 10:9–13). If you have, the Holy Spirit will enable your understanding of God’s name to soar to new heights.
2. Lean on the Holy Spirit.
When God saves us, He gives every believer His indwelling Holy Spirit to guard and protect us and our salvation, to teach us what He’s said in His Word, and to empower us to obey. The Holy Spirit is our constant Companion, our wise Counselor, and our great Comforter. He is the power of God, for He is God (John 14:16–17, 26; Luke 24:49; Rom. 8:11).
Are you depending on the Holy Spirit to teach you each day? Are you asking Him to fill you with more love for God’s Word and trusting Him to empower you to obey it more faithfully (Phil. 2:13; Heb. 13:20–21)? Lean on Him; He will not fail you. He will lead you into the truth of God’s Word and help you remember it (John 16:13). He will instruct and teach you in the way you should go and counsel you with His eye upon you (Psalm 32:8).
3. Seek God through His Word and prayer.
God’s Word is the lamp that leads us to know God’s name. Prayer is the acknowledgement that He is the One who holds the power we need for all our days, minutes, and seconds.
Through God’s Word we come to yada the multifaceted truths of His glorious name—and we have much to learn. Sixty-six books worth. But don’t be discouraged. Every Christian in history has walked this life-changing path—and God is with us. How faithful are you to read God’s Word each day? Do you read the Bible widely (read the whole thing) and deeply (study entire passages and books)?
As you read, join Moses in prayer, saying, “Please, let me see your glory” (Ex. 33:18). In response, God declared, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name ‘the LORD’ before you” (v. 19). God then came down in a cloud and proclaimed His name:
The LORD—the LORD is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. (Exodus 34:6–7)
We don’t need God to come down in a cloud and proclaim His name. He’s given us a fuller understanding than even Moses received because we have the whole Bible. As you read, seek God on every page. Talk with Him in prayer about His character, nature, and ways. His strong name is the power that carries us through our God-appointed storms and desert places.
4. Understand God’s good purposes for our barren circumstances.
Our barren circumstances aren’t rogue events in our lives. They’re God-designed to work together for our great good and to make us more like Christ (Rom. 8:28–29). God intends them not to discourage or undo us but to move us from where we are to where we need to be—into a deeper understanding of His name. God does some of His most important works in barren places.
Our suffering shines a piercing light on what we truly believe about God by exposing our knee-jerk reactions to our struggles. What rises out of your heart when struggles descend? Faith or fear? Peace or despair? Our suffering is where God works out in our hearts and our lives what we’ve learned about Him in His Word. It is the proving ground where God refines and strengthens what we yada about Him.
Elisabeth Elliot, missionary and widow to martyred Jim Elliot, discovered this life-giving truth in her barren circumstances. In her book Suffering Is Never for Nothing, she said, “The deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering. And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things that I know about God.”1
It was while Israel was in bondage to slavery in Egypt that they learned God is the true and almighty God. It was in the desert where they learned He’s able to supply all their needs. As God led them through the wilderness for forty years, He fed them bread from heaven, kept their shoes and clothing from wearing out, and brought them into a land of their own that flowed with milk and honey. They learned to yada God’s name because of their wilderness experience not despite it.
It was while Paul was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and given a thorn in his flesh that he learned the secret to contentment—to yada God’s name. Through the fertile soil of Paul’s harsh circumstances, God cultivated a glorious harvest in him.
Paul reaped the spiritual fruit of enviable strength, resolve, and praise as well as peace, joy, and a right perspective on suffering: “I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need” (Phil. 4:12). Paul learned that God’s grace is sufficient for all our needs (2 Cor. 12:9).
May we also yada God’s name so we can proclaim with Paul, “I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (1 Cor. 12:9–10).
We can’t conjure up this kind of faith. It is the natural effect of those who yada God’s name—and this takes time. Be patient and persistent. Your deserts will become places of flourishing.
From Barren to Flourishing
When our circumstances become so barren we’re tempted to despair, let’s cry out to God and engulf ourselves in the truth of His character. He will never abandon us. As we seek God, He will give us the light we need to see and yada who He is and the power to flourish in the truth we know and believe. By the power of His Spirit, He will take our young sapling faith that is easily scorched by every hot breeze of trouble and transform it into a well-watered oak even in the desert. “He who calls you is faithful; he will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
No matter how barren our circumstances, when we yada God’s name, it will cause spiritual refreshment to gush into our wilderness souls, our parched spirits to become a pool, and our thirsty faith to spring up and overflow because He will never forsake those who seek Him.
Seek Him in His Word today. Cry out to Him in prayer and bless His name. He is with you. He will lead you through your dry and barren circumstances and cause you to bloom with grace and peace and flourish more than the lushest gardens of Hawaii.
How priceless your faithful love is, God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They are filled from the abundance of your house.
You let them drink from your refreshing stream.
For the wellspring of life is with you.
By means of your light we see light.
Spread your faithful love over those who know [yada] you. (Psalm 36:7–10)
The message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ is spreading far and wide—like a river that cannot be stopped. It’s reaching more women, leading them to thrive in Christ, and shaping lives for generations to come. Would you prayerfully join us in this work? We’d love to send you the 50 Promises to Live By Card Set this month as our thanks for your donation of any amount to help women thrive in Christ. May it serve as a constant reminder of God’s unchanging care for you.
1 Elisabeth Elliott, Suffering is Never for Nothing (Nashville: B&H, 2019), 9.
