Moses is on holy ground at a burning bush, asking the question every theologian has asked since: "What is your name?" The Egyptian gods all had names that explained them — Ra was the sun, Hapi was the Nile, Anubis was death. The God of Abraham refuses that grammar. His name is not a description; it is an existence claim. He simply is.

From the writers we read together

William Lane Craig

philosopher and theologian, defender of the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Craig has spent his career arguing that God is the only kind of thing that doesn't need an explanation outside itself. Everything else has a beginning, a cause, a borrowed existence. Exodus 3:14 is the verse where God names himself in exactly those terms: I AM. Not I was caused. Not I depend. I AM.

If you live as if your existence were self-explanatory, this verse is corrective. Your morning is given. Your next breath is given. Even your ability to wonder about God is given by the only Being whose existence is not given. Stand in that for a minute before the day starts.