New Names

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

Jesus appeared to John and gave him this message as written in Revelation. As I read these words, “I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name”, I sometimes wonder what will my name be. My parents named me David. I called my mom and asked her why they choose my name. She said, “David and Goliath, it’s a strong name. Your dad and I both liked the name David.” It  isn’t a name I have earned or it might not even be a name that describes who I am. I haven’ slain any giants, or lead an army or ruled a nation. There have been many days during my childhood when my parents called me by some very creative names that did describe me or my actions at that moment. The Hebrew meaning of my name is beloved.

God changed peoples names in the Bible. Sarai became Sarah. Jacob was changed to Israel, “Because you fought with God and man and have won.” God gave them new names to reflect who they were in His eyes. I wonder what people thought when Jacob and Sarai said, Hey God changed our names, I am now Israel and she is now Sarah. A few raised eyebrows maybe?

I find it exciting and maybe a little scary to think what my new name will be. If it is based on my life here and a name I have earned I might be in trouble. Messed up again, or stubborn, not quick to learn. According to God’s standard we are all liars, thieves, murderers. The list is endless of our failures during this life. Yet God keeps no record of wrongs that is not what he will remember. Through the blood of Christ we are clean. Jesus has set us free from our failures and He will be giving us a new name.  “And no one understands but the one who receives it.” It will be between Him and us. A name that summarizes who we are in Christ. Who God created us to be. It will be a name that remains with us through eternity and we alone will understand it’s meaning.

What will your name be?

Blessings

Ezekiel 34:26 “I will cause my people and their homes around my holy hill to be a blessing. And I will send showers, showers of blessings, which will come just when they are needed.”

My wife and I recently attended the Casting Crowns concert in Duluth. It was an amazing night, featuring great singing, the performers sharing their stories, and prayer. One of the performers that night was a woman named Laura Story. Laura shared about the trials life has thrown at her and her husband, Martin. In 2006 Martin was hospitalized with a brain tumor. It wasn’t cancerous, but it was growing aggressively. They had been married less than two years and suddenly their lives took a huge detour. Martin almost died and at one point he was being kept alive by machines. He has suffered memory and some vision loss. For the past seven years Martin has not been able to work full time so he has toured with Laura and helped with her ministry as he is able. It is not the life they had planned yet they are making it work and finding blessings and hope on the new path God has put them on. Their suffering has allowed them both to minister to hurting people in ways that would not have been possible before their suffering.

Laura has written a song about their journey titled, Blessings. Laura says, “The song shows that we still have more questions than answers,” Laura says. “But there’s a decision that I find God is asking us to make: whether we’re going to judge God based on our circumstances, or whether we are going to choose to interpret our circumstances based on what we hold to be true about God.”

Her song in part, “Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops- What if Your healing comes through tears- What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near- What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise- What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life- Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy- What if trials of this life-The rain, the storms, the hardest nights- Are your mercies in disguise” She says of the album, “It is about worshipping God when life is hard.”

“Worshipping God when life is hard.” To see beyond this life to what lies beyond it. To find a cause greater than ourselves. To keep fighting and choose to believe God is still there even when we cannot hear or feel him. To keep believing, trusting and seeking God even when He seems to be ignoring our prayers, to be ignoring our pleas.

Abraham, Paul, Joseph, David, Noah they were able to endure all their suffering because they knew God was for them. They endured tears, rain drops and sleepless nights knowing that there was a prize awaiting them, knowing God’s blessing would come, “Just when they were needed.”

Sweet Water

Sweet Water

Proverbs 27:19 “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person.”

A couple of Sunday’s ago I visited a church in Duluth and the Pastor shared this analogy from Joni Eareckson Tada. We are like empty pitchers and as we go through life our pitchers start to get filled up. They get filled up with bitter water or sweet water. Life is a series of bumps and other people will bump us. What spills out is either bitter water or sweet water. The natural tendency when bitter water spills out is to blame the suffering to blame the bump, to blame the person. In doing so we keep filling our pitcher with bitter water. Things keep bumping us, we say we got an unfair shake. When we blame the bumps we are completely missing the point. For bumps will come and what spills out of us is enlightening of what is really in our heart.

This really hit home for me and I was embarrassed to think of the things that have spilled out of me when I have hit the bumps in my life. I was convicted thinking of how many times I have blamed the bump for the bitter water that has spilled out of me. Even the little bumps in life. How have I reacted to my family when they rub me the wrong way. The same with friends or coworkers, other drivers. I think about the person who has served me in restaurants or has waited on me in a store. When things don’t go the way I want them to or think they should, what has spilled out of my pitcher?

Over the past couple of weeks this message of the pitcher keeps replaying in my mind. I have been making an effort to really watch what is filling my pitcher. To control what thoughts I am letting play out in my mind. To not dwell on the negative. I have been trying to live out Philippians 4:8.9 “Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.” Is it easy? Have I been entirely successful? All I can say is I am very glad my life is not part of a reality T.V. show open for the whole world to see.

Lord I pray that you help me and help us to fill our hearts with good things from you. That you will fill us with sweet water. I pray that as the bumps do come that we do not place blame. That sweet water will pour out and that our hearts will reflect not only us but you.

The Tin Man

Matthew 24:12 “Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.”

I read an e-mail recently and this quote from C.S. Lewis was on the bottom of the page; “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” 


The quote reminded me of the story of the Tin Man from the “Land of Oz books, by L. Frank Braum, (The Wizard of Oz). The Tin Man was originally a man named Nick Chopper a woodsman who is in love with a young munchkin girl named Nimee Amee. They plan to be married but an old woman that Nimee works for does not want to lose her. She pays a witch to curse Nick’s ax. The ax is cursed and as Nick is working cutting down trees to build a life for him and Nimee his ax begins to cause accidents. After each accident Nick looses body parts one by one. A tinsmith replaces his body parts with tin. He finally has an accident that injures his heart and the tinsmith patches him up but without a heart. With each accident Nick would lose a part of himself. He would find himself separating more and more from Nimee. Until finally he forgets about Nimee, he is no longer able to love. He loses Nimee, his heart has been replaced by tin.

“The love of many will grow cold.” All of us know that loving does hurt, we do get hurt and sometimes we get deeply wounded. It feels like a knife or and ax has opened a gaping wound leaving us exposed and bleeding. We can be like the tin man and put on armor becoming less and less human. We can build up walls that no one will ever again penetrate. We can turn to our work and look only to the next task in front of us, forgetting our dreams and what we are working toward. Our hearts will become, “unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

God looks at our hearts, 1 Samuel 16:7 “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person.” Proverbs 27:19 Solomon said Give me an understanding heart 1 Kings 3:9  “Light shines on the godly, and joy on those whose hearts are right.” Psalm 97:11 Five hundred and seventy verses talk about our heart in the Bible, we must be vulnerable we cannot let our hearts grow cold.