I AM who I AM: What is God's name?

So a child walks up to you after church and asks you: "What is God's name?" What do you say? "God" was the answer I most typically got. And that worked for me. It probably works for you, too. However, God does have a name, we just don't get to use it too often. Page through the Old Testament, and you will see the Lord and the LORD. Lord is a title that goes back through the centuries. LORD, however, is a coding for the name of God. The name of the Lord is inscribed in the Old Testament as YHWH. However, Jews never pronounce this name, instead saying "Adonai" (meaning lord or Lord, hence the translation of LORD in most English Bibles) or "Hashem" (meaning "The Name," as in "call upon The Name of the Lord"). In Jewish tradition, even around the time of Jesus, to pronounce the actual name of God (except in some circumstances) was equivalent to blasphemy. The Bible itself is a little more ambivalent on using the divine name. The biggest warning we get is to not use the name of the Lord in vain, which is one of the 10 commandments. What's the point? It is awesome that God lets us know God's name. In the ancient world, it was only the high priests and powerful who knew the "secret" names of the gods, and we don't know them today because the priests have all died out. But God does not save His own name for only a few- God desires the name-by-name connection with all. Thinking about this changes the way I think about prayer, and I hope it helps you as well.