The Power of Naming

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says…I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.

Revelation 2:17

If you knew you had the power to rename your circumstances and change both the outlook and the outcome, would you use it?

To Adam, God’s first human creation, He imparted the power of naming. As his lineage, God calls on us to name things and we already do it instinctively. We name the driver who cuts us off in traffic – “You idiot!” (or worse). The phone call that brings unwelcome news – “This is so stupid!”

What if we chose to name these things differently? What if we intentionally used the power given to us for good; to add positive definition to our environment?

“This is an opportunity to be patient” or “Something good is going to come from this?” Why not name things positively, O ye proclaimers of Romans 8:28?

What if, when we’re faced with the opportunity to complain, be fearful, or ticked off, we say, “Jesus, how do you want me to look at this?” Like the upcoming election, for example?

Naming is Defining

As the fall of 2012 approaches, we face changes. To our schedules, our families, our nation’s leadership. It’s easy to feel a sense of loss with the carefree days of summer fading, bathing suits and water skis packed away, and days growing shorter.

It would be both easy and natural to focus on the losses. Maybe an empty nest or a first-grader leaving to begin his school years. As nature changes, we often feel a subliminal sadness or despondency.

At times like this, we have a perfect opportunity to ask Jesus to give us His perspective, so we can name the event based on what He shows us. Doing that is a choice. One that can change everything. When we take this path, we give Him a chance to shape our perception of life.

Our World is not Neutral

A huge gathering of those who have gone before us, the cloud of witnesses, cheers us as we run our race (Hebrews 12:1), but we also have a crowd that opposes or withstands us (1 Corinthians 16:9).

Each of these groups have opposite perspectives.  Our adversaries are hell-bent to get us to name everything negatively. When we listen to their whispers, it doesn’t take long for despondency to set in.

We learn to conduct ourselves rightly from those who have gone before us. We do this by paying attention to how they named things – in fact, even their names tell a story.

Abram – it is said of him that he believed God and it counted as righteousness. Then God changed his name to Abraham. His first name means “exalted father,” but his second name means “father of a multitude.” Similar in sound but vastly different in meaning.

Isaac (Abraham’s promised son) had a name that means “he laughs,” but after his wrestling match with God, his name was changed to “Israel – God prevails.” The joke was over.

Sarai became Sarah, Simon was renamed Peter, Saul became known as Paul. God must have some purpose in changing all these names. So what can we learn from this?

Mister In-Between

Anybody remember Johnny Mercer’s song?

Accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

Don’t mess with Mister In-Between

Not bad advice, when you think about it. Negative forces pull us towards darkness and once we’re in the pit it’s pretty hard to hear God or see anything from His perspective. Most of the time though, we walk a tightrope between the two poles: we haven’t chosen to wholly focus on the positive and haven’t eliminated the negative either. We are somewhere in-between.

I had an opportunity to do that recently when my daughter, Texas, had to appear in court for a misdemeanor charge. In itself the charge wasn’t that serious, but she has a long record with the courts, and her name isn’t one judges are likely to forget.

The night before the arraignment, I sat on the deck at dusk thinking about what might happen. It was the day after Hurricane Isaac and the evening was blustery and wild. “Another storm to face, Lord. How do you want me to pray for her?”

After waiting quietly for a bit, I felt such an assurance that however this turned out, it would be good. If she was sentenced to 30 days in jail, it would give her 30 days of sobriety. (She had reminded me of that the day before.) She would journal, work on her part of the book we’re planning to write together, and be done with it. No probation or monthly fees she can’t afford.

If she just got probation – well…she wouldn’t go to jail. As it turned out, her court date was postponed.

As I waited on Him to reveal His perspective, He led me to the place where I could name this incident as a good thing. After all, it was an answer to prayer. Her prayer.

Hadn’t she said, “Father, whatever it takes for me to surrender fully to You, I give You permission to do it”? And hadn’t she been arrested that very night?

God named this a good thing. A necessary thing in her journey to wholeness.

Not a Game of Pretense

This isn’t a call to pretend everything’s just fine. It’s not denial of the truth – that we face difficulties almost daily and there are consequences. But I’ll be doggone if I’m going to let the Master of Deceit get the upper hand by telling me what to think or feel.

Might you choose to rename something that’s going on in your life right now? The power of naming it belongs solely to you.

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Comments

  1. Cathee, thanks for sharing your musings with such frankness. Helping others learn to see life’s “stuff” from God’s perspective is the goal, but few of us “farther-into-our-journey” are willing to get real like this. We have to be more candid – openly sharing how the light of His Word on our personal pain, fear, and wounds…is healing them! I know, because I have a lot more than most!

  2. Just in time Cathee. I am posting this on Facebook immediately! I am doing a study on perspective and what is gained when we renew our mind. We are what we think. The choice is ours to see in a different way.

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