I really wanted a song on the album 5+2 exploring the names and character of God. A song to allow people to simply proclaim and sing out the truth of who God is just by singing his names. “The great I am” felt like a good  place to start. This is a name we associate with God our Father and creator: Yahweh… the one who brings into existence whatever exists. It’s also a name we associate with Jesus.

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” John 8:58

“The great I am ” is a name of real power. So with that as the start point, I continued exploring scripture for the other names of God – of which there are many… Creator, Redeemer, Good Shepherd, Comforter, Healer, Prince of Peace, Messiah… the list goes on.

I must say at this point that I’ve never been much of a fan of worship songs that take their reference from lots of different bible verses. I generally find them pretty confusing – almost too much to fit into a small space. But I reasoned that a list of names used in this way wouldn’t be confusing in the same way… after all, it’s just a list of names… and it’s only 21 references! Better than none at all! So I went ahead and “The great I am” was written. And I guess you can decide if it works or not.

The picture above shows the names I ended up using. The list below shows where I found them.

(Lyrics taken from the names of God found in: 1 Pet 4:19, 1 Cor 1:24, Titus 2:13, 1 John 4:8, Rev 19:11, Jer 3:12, Gen 17:1, Rev 15:3, Deut 33:27, Ex 3:14, John 8:58, Job 19:25, Jer 23:6, Luke 2:11, 1 Pet 2:25, Is 9:6, John 14:26, Matt 22:42, John 4:25, Rom 11:26, Rev 21:6)