Alva Review-Courier -

Our most interesting Christmas present this year was a 7-week-old Australian shepherd and Great Pyrenees puppy. We are presently trying to come up with a suitable name.

I am hopelessly old fashioned (and happy to be so), but I think names should mean something. Names should do more than identify. Names should be prophetic, give direction and explain the character of the being that carries it.

Names today are creative. Parents are imaginative in naming their children. While these names may be masterfully devised, filled with rhythmic and poetic qualities, there is no meaning behind the name. They are just beautifully sounding gibberish.

As a child I hated my name. I did not want to be Harold. Today I have a completely different outlook. I have come to appreciate my name because I now see its significance, prophetic nature and the direction it provides. My name is more than a label that picks me out of a crowed, it is a way of explaining who I am and why I am here.

I was named after an uncle, my father’s eldest brother, who died as a boy. My father wanted to honor his departed brother and create an opportunity for his life to live on through me. I also carry the same middle name as my grandfather. So, my name has a heritage that ties me to my ancestors. Moreover, the word Harold means “military ruler,” or “powerful leader.” The name comes from the root word, herald, which means a messenger.

From the moment of my birth, my name spoke of who I was to be. I was to be a leader and a messenger for God. My name not only identifies who I am, but it creates a standard, and gives purpose and meaning to my life.

Unfortunately, I have allowed others to give me an identifying label that I came to embrace as my name. Names such as loser and dummy. These, and many other names, were given to me by others. Unfortunately, I began to believe that these names were a better representation of me, than Harold, a name given to me by God, through my parents. As a result, I began to live up to the expectations given to me by those names, and not my true name.

I do not believe that I am alone in this. I know that many of you have also been given names by others, and you have come to believe that they are better representations of your identity, than the name given to you by God.

If that describes you, take heart. God has a long tradition of changing names. He took a childless man, named Abram (which means exalted father), and gave him an even more ridiculous name, Abraham (which means father of a multitude). Abram’s shame was that he did not live up to his name. The exalted father had no children. He came to embrace the name, childless. However, God gave him a new name, a new identity, a new way in which he was to be identified; father of a multitude. When God gave the new name, He also empowered him to live up to the new name. Thus, he became the father of a multitude.

Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, which means supplanter, heel grabber, or trickster, also had his name changed. God renamed him, “He said, your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). Israel means “He fights or persists with God.”

God gave Jacob the name Israel because he was not the same person. There had been a fundamental transformation in the heart of Jacob, so he could no longer be identified as a supplanter. He was now one who fights and persists with God.

Abraham and Israel underwent fundamental transformations, so they could no longer be identified as Abram and Jacob. God had to give them a new name, because they were new people.

What name has the world given you? What label have they put on you that you have embraced? Is your name failure, loser, broken relationship, broken family, addict, rude, or ignorant?

That may be who you were, but God has a new name for you. You are no longer failure, you are the victor. You are no longer addict, you are now overcomer. You are no longer broken, your new name is complete. For “if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).