What is in a Name?

Throughout the last decade and a half the Lord has littered my journey with Him with nuggets of teaching about names and why He changes them. Have you ever noticed that? One minute we are reading about Abram, then the next Abraham. Jacob was renamed Israel.

Did you ever wonder why?

I went through two major times of internal healing –the first was from sexual abuse with my dad; the second, a separation and divorce.  On each occasion the Lord told me, “I will change your name, daughter.” When I asked Him why, He reminded me that throughout my growing up years I was embarrassed to be known as my father’s daughter because of his behavior in public while intoxicated. I would cringe inside when people said,” You are Jack’s daughter.”  When I confirmed yes, I saw the look in their eye. I saw the looks behind my father’s back when he, in a drunken stupor, would be belligerent or lascivious to  friends. I quickly learned that being his daughter was something to be ashamed of.

So when my Abba told me He was changing my name, I was excited, but I didn’t understand what that meant. Then he brought me to Genesis 32 where Jacob wrestled with God and He changed his name to Israel. The Lord said…

“But he had to wrestle for it.”

Oh. Well that didn’t sound as inviting as before. Couldn’t I just get some sort of spiritual birth certificate? What about a Christening party…I liked parties.

Nope. Wrestling.

“But Lord,” I whined, “I don’t know how to wrestle!”

He showed me.

Like Jacob, I had to give up my right to fear, vengeance, hurt, and betrayal just to name a few. In other words, I had to give up my right to my past. You can’t take a new name into a new future with the past hanging on to you like an albatross.

The Israelites had it right. They understood the power behind a name. They knew that a name was an actual spiritual blessing and it meant there was power imparted through a God-given name. Some even believed that names influenced the thoughts and beliefs about themselves and that the name prophesied characteristics or roles they would play in history. ¹

I thought once I had my new name that was “it”, that I’d arrived. That was when the Great Name Giver showed me that, in order to pass through the wilderness into your promised land, you have many wrestling’s and many name changes along the way. Every time you have a major shift or transition in your life’s journey, He may take you through a season of wrestling for a new name.

I’ve grown to like wrestling. Don’t get me wrong. It’s hard. It hurts. I have likened it to peeling off skin over an exposed bone.

Kind of like shedding…only deeper.

I will change your name
You shall no longer be called
Wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid

I will change your name
Your new name shall be
Confidence, joyfulness, overcoming one
Faithfulness, friend of God
One who seeks My face

Eden’s Bridge

¹ http://www.gotquestions.org/name-change.ht

Sacrificial Ashes

What happens when we take our sacrifice off the alter when God tells us to leave it there?

When God always calls us to place what we treasure on the alter, is it to see if we love Him enough? Is it to test us? I don’t know. I know for me, it was to see if my obedience outweighed what my heart desired.

I failed miserably.

I tied my treasure to the alter and waited like all obedient children do. Then, as time ticked on, my sacrifice’s replacement (i.e. ram) didn’t show. Where was my ram in the thicket? I looked and looked. Surely the Lord would provide a replacement for my treasure!

Not finding one, I felt it necessary – nay my duty – to untie my treasure and help it off the alter. Then the Lord asked, “Where is your sacrifice?” With a shameful shuffle, I tied it back up (loosely mind you, you never know when you might need it), stepped back in pious religiosity, then went on the hunt for its replacement yet again.

With each pious conviction and rebinding, the sacrifice ropes became looser and looser until eventually the treasure slipped off the alter unaided. I kept waiting for Him to allow me to keep my sacrifice, all the while He kept waiting for me to allow Him to keep it.

God is quite patient with our humanity, but there will come that fateful day when, before you can untie it again, He sends Holy Fire to consume the sacrifice He chose for YOU to offer.

It is agonizing to watch a treasure you have longed for burn. The fire is Holy and from His heart, but it still sears your being.

My soul wailed at the site of my incinerated treasure.

But Lord – you didn’t send a ram, what was I to do?

Wait. That is what you do. You wait.

My beautiful treasure – one I’d waited many years for – lay in ashes at the alter because I couldn’t – wouldn’t – wait for my ram.

So what is one to do when their treasure lay at God’s alter in ashes?

Wait ...

... for the ashes to soak into the soil during the spring rains.

... for the ashes to feed future seeds.

Wait ... with thanksgiving and praise to see the peaceable fruit of righteousness rise from the ash-sodden soil.