He Knows My Name

    

 I haven’t always loved my name.  I can remember being in middle school hanging out during basketball tournaments or participating in UIL and using an opportunity to change my name.  “Hey! I’m Courtney” I’d lie.  My friends and I would change our names as we introduced ourselves to kids from other schools.  It was fun going incognito and it gave me a chance to be whoever I wanted to be, if just for a moment.

     Though I may not have always loved my name, I LOVE seeing my name.  Nothing thrills me more than seeing my name on envelopes (unless it’s a bill), in the newspaper, on a birthday cake, and I especially love seeing my name on presents wrapped and topped off with a bow.  Who’s with me?  I remember one really cool gift my mom gave me when I was around the age of nine.  She gave me a box full of brightly-colored pencils with the name Kristi Fowler engraved on each one.  I felt so special. 

      Your name was especially thought-out and was probably called out before you were even born.  Names identify who you are.  When I am downstairs at home I can call out, “Hey youngest child wearing the strawberry shirt, come down here.”  Or I could just say “Rylie, come down”.   Names have been used throughout history to show to whom someone belongs.  Jason’s Papa had the last name of Knudson.  It showed that Jason’s Papa was the “son” of Knud.  As I used my name-labeled pencils at school, there was no mistaking who these pencils belonged to.   So what does your name show about who you are?  More importantly, what does your name say about “whose” you are? 

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck,

 write them on the tablet of your heart.

Then you will win favor and a good name.  Proverbs 3:3-4

     Have you ever had your teacher send an important note home attached to your shirt or rolled up and made into a bracelet bound around your wrist?  Teachers often will do this when they have an important message that they want to make sure is noticed.  Read verse three again.  How can you bind love and faithfulness around your neck so that it never leaves you?  I can only think of one way.  If I, with all of the goodness within me, try to love and try to be faithful I may do pretty well some of the time.  But only Jesus is truly love.  And only He is always faithful.  Jesus IS Love.  Jesus IS Faithfulness.  When it says write them on the tablet of your heart, we need to remember that the only way to be love and to be faithful is by having Jesus in your heart.  Not just in the corner.  Let him fill your heart.  Allow Jesus to be on every page and on every line of your heart-tablet spilling over to the margins.  Remember that learning who Jesus is and spending time with him is how we come to be more like him.  When Jesus is written in our hearts, I believe he graces our neck and adorns our wrist. Then people on the outside can see him too.

     With Jesus in our hearts and on our sleeve we assuredly have a good name.  A name better than Kristi or Courtney.  Verse four also tells us that with Jesus we have won favor.  The one who has known my name since the beginning of time has approved me as a daughter of the King and an ambassador to the world. And I have a message.  My name is Kristi, but I must tell you.  I belong to Jesus.

 

*FYI-The picture is a name jumble from wordle with the names of the girls in our GG's group.

Thanks to Josette Hughes for making the word jumble.

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