Name Calling

Drop off/pick up time at my son's preschool is usually pretty uneventful, but one morning offered a small adventure.
I was getting back into my car when I noticed a little white dog running around the parking lot.  A lady was trying unsuccessfully to coax him back into her car so a few of the other preschool parents and I tried to help herd him over to her.

We called to him, whistled, and tried to corral him. He was having none of our directions but heaps of fun. It was a glorious game for the little white dog.
"What's his name?" I asked the self-conscious handler of the naughty dog.
She smiled at me apologetically. 
"Chase" was her amusing answer.
I think about names often. Naming characters, for me, is one of the hardest things about story writing. I work in a library and I'm always looking up names of patrons to process their transactions and it's fun to see how many "Susans" or how few "Scarlets" there are in the Evergreen program.
I think one of the reasons names hold fascination for me is that my name (except, perhaps, for the spelling) is so very ordinary. Just today I came across at least two people with the same name as me.  Having the same name as so many others makes me feel common and uninteresting sometimes. It's silly, I know.
But there is one thing about my name that I love: the meaning. My name means "beloved" and like Chase the mischievous dog, it fits. Not because I'm especially charming or adorable or anything, but because of The One who goes by many, many names. Here are just a few:

Adonai

Creator
Savior

Abba

Comforter

Father

Spirit

Jesus

I am loved beyond comprehension by Him. 
And so are you.
 He takes away our orphan status and calls us sons. No matter how ordinary, rejected, unworthy or forgotten we feel we are His Beloved. 
Check out this very exciting, mysterious verse from Revelation. This was the passage was the message of a recent sermon at church and I've been thinking of it ever since:


Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.                                                                       Revelation 2:17


Maybe others have given you names. The enemy sure has. Maybe you've given even yourself some. I know how that feels. Hello My Name is...Ugly? Weird? Irrelevant? Ordinary? I've worn all those names and more on my lapel. 
But no one has the authority to tell us who we are except the One who created us. Not even ourselves.
 Our Father is going to give us a new name. Something special that tells us what we really are to him. I don't really understand  all that this verse means and I certainly have no idea what sort of new name Jesus would have for us, but I know one thing: While, like Chase the dog, our name will suit us, our new name will not be one of the  soul-killing, untrue labels we've  worn here on earth. Our name will not be "Ordinary" because we are extraordinarily loved. 

God the Mother

Don't freak out on me, I haven't adopted any pagan ideas about Gaia or whatever I just want to talk about some attributes of God. It's because of the library book that got lost in our house for about a month.
Jesse checked out a book at school, I think we read it one time and then it evaporated. To make a long story short, I found it yesterday in the "cold room" hidden in a stack of coloring books I had removed from the kitchen while I was cleaning.
After I found it I posted a comment on facebook: "I found it because I'm the Mama."

You've seen that one quote. "Nothing is really lost until your mom can't find it." Finding is one of those things that is special about moms.
Last week Keith and I were watching this sermon by Rich Wilkerson Jr. It's really good so check it out. He talks about Jesus and lost things. He points out that we are the ones who title one of His parables "The Prodigal Son" but Jesus called it a story about two brothers. Both brothers were lost.
Moms are known for finding lost things and God is, too. God is The Father, but He also loves us like a mother. Check out this passage from the 18th Psalm:

6 In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.7 The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.8 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth,burning coals blazed out of it.9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.10 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky.12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,

with hailstones and bolts of lightning. 13 The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.14 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy,with great bolts of lightning he routed them.15 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, Lord, at the blast of breath from your nostrils.16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he drew me out of deep waters.17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,from my foes, who were too strong for me.18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,but the Lord was my support.

19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

That sounds like a mother to me. I mean, if  you want to feel a woman's wrath just mess with her kid. It makes me think of a bear defending her cubs. God hears our distress and the result is smoke and lighting and hailstones and burning coals. Whoa. 

And then at the end He swoops in and comforts us. My boys adore my husband. There are, no question about it, times they want him and not me. But when they're hurt or distressed they will run past their dad to dive into my arms. 

God is Abba. Daddy. He does all the things that good daddies do. 

But He loves us like a Mama, too.

He's the one we run to when we fall and scrape up our hands and knees. I asked Him to help me find the book and He did. Just like a Mama, He's known for finding what's lost.

God and Grandchildren

Abba

Have you ever heard the saying "God doesn't have grandchildren"? I remember hearing that when I was younger and, though I understood and agreed, something about it made me a little sad. I think it was because I knew what it was to be treasured and loved by a grandparent. Grandmas and Grandpas love in a way that no one else does. I mean, is there a more selfless, patient love than the love of a grandparent? I got the point of it, but a little part of me sighed.
And then I became a parent and it made a lot more sense.

link

One of the main things I know people mean when they say that God doesn't have grandchildren is that we don't belong to Him by proxy. Just because our parents are believers, and take us to church every week, and pray for us, and teach us what they know, doesn't mean that we have our own relationship with Him. If our relationship with Him isn't personal it's meaningless.
But there's something else, too. A parent's role is different that a grandparent's. A child's main care, upbringing and provision should come from his parents. A grandparent should be able to supplement nurturing while still being able to fawn over and spoil a child in a way that parents cannot. The love of a grandparent differs from that of a parent perhaps not in degree but in kind.
I'm really not trying to make a point about family dynamics as much as I am about  relationships with God. God does not want to be removed from us in a way that keeps Him out of major (or even minor) decisions. Parents name their children, decide which bedroom is theirs, and are responsible for the majority of disciplinary decisions.
Now when I think about God not having grandchildren I think about closeness. And not just the sweet-cuddly kind. The wake-up-with-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind. The pay-for-your-braces kind, The take-care-of-you when-you're-sick kind. The I-love-you-too-much-to-allow-that-behavior kind. He wants to be The Source. Not a resource.
I'm not saying that being a grandparent is a worry-free sunshine and lollipops walk in the park, and I know that lots of grandparents have stepped into a role of raising their grandchildren. My opinion about the love of a grandparent has not changed. My boys' grandparents love them so fiercely there's no way it doesn't reflect the love of God and I can't tell you how thankful I am for them.
What I am saying is that God wants all of us. He wants to be the one signing our permission slips and helping us with our homework every night. But unlike earthly parents He doesn't get tired and His patience is infinitely stronger. That's why He's God the Father. He wants you in His house under His specific care. He doesn't want you to be His kid's kid. He wants you for His own.




P.S. If you're interested in more of this topic,here.
Ken Ham has already expanded on it

How Does He Love Us?

 

How does He love us? Let Him count the ways. 

In my Sunday School class we've been learning about the overwhelming evidence of the accuracy of the Bible. It's been fascinating. Did you know that DNA is a lot like computer code? It's complicated and specific, and no way, no how, assembled by chance. There's also archaeology. Scads of evidence corroborates the accounts of the Bible. Amino acids and ancient pottery- it all reinforces what we already know. I really enjoy it, but it frustrates me, too, because this study material wouldn't exist if it weren't for skeptics, but most skeptics aren't going to listen anyway. So what’s the point? Many people want to be their own authority and have rewritten the truth to make that a possibility. 
For a long time I thought that my frustration was a flaw. I was just being narrow and overly sensitive. 
Until I decided to try something I had read about: I asked God to tell me things He loves about me.
That's right. 
I asked God what he loves about me. 
I waited until I had a rare quiet moment to myself and I asked Him. He told me other things, too, but I was surprised when He brought up the topic I just mentioned. My impatience with refusals to acknowledge Him? My discomfort with the fact that we have to arm ourselves with extra-biblical information because of the willful ignorance of others? He loves that about me. Loves it. I thought it was a defect, but He loves it. 
And here is my point: We live in an upside-down world.We're bombarded with lies every day and it changes the way we see things. God sees things differently. 
I encourage you to ask Him to open your eyes to the lies you're believing about yourself. Really listen. Take a quiet moment and ask Him to tell you what He loves about you and get ready to be overwhelmed because you are profoundly loved, His list is long, and He may say something that surprises you.