What’s in a name?
Often the first question we are asked is ‘What’s your name?’
It is the way we are addressed that is the ‘way in’ to more conversation and an introduction to others isn’t it? I recently subscribed to another online devotional resource from the good old USA. I laugh heartily at the improbably hilarious names of the authors.
RC Sproul
Ahuna Mcvee
Moolea Chavobla
(Ok I made the last two up)
But seriously, names say alot about us don’t they?
One of the most frightening names for me in all of Scripture is the name ‘Ichabod’. It means ‘God’s glory has left.’ Given to a child by a dying mother it sums up the utter despair of a person who could not see God’s plans and purposes and assumed He had upped and legged it. Talk about giving a child a complex!
Sometimes life can feel like we are experiencing an Ichabod kind of time can’t it? We wonder where God is and what He is doing. We look at other people around us who seem to be thriving, laughing and being amazingly spiritual before breakfast and we are sitting in a corner wondering if the God we have been praying to is actually on holiday.
But God doesn’t do that does He?
Last night, just before I fell asleep, Jon asked me what I had been reading and praying about. I said Jesus had been talking to me. ‘And how is Jesus?’ he asked. I smiled and said, ‘He is the same as He was yesterday!’
God doesn’t send those automated emails we sometimes get.
“I am away from my desk until the 14th.” He is an ever-present -ever-ready, ever-answering God, whether He shows Himself or not.
Whatever you have prayed, God has heard.
Whatever you have said, God has heard.
Whatever you have thought, God has heard.
He knows.
Today is not an Ichabod day.