What's In A Name?

"No longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations."

Genesis 17:5

"Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Genesis 32:28

"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church...."

Matthew 16:17

I recall a couple of very important memories from my childhood. They both involve my mother and words that she spoke to me. One of them was - "I wanted a dainty little girl and I got a big horse" and the other was - "They never made a lady out of me and they'll never make a lady out of you either." Words, curses actually, spoken over a young girl who, at the time, had no idea the power of those words. 

Fast forward years later, I was a fairly new born-again Christian, renewed and being renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. One night I had a dream, a powerful dream - Coming in through the sliding glass doors of my dining room was an immense beautiful white horse and on that horse was a knight in shining armor! I awoke suddenly and the song I heard was - "Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you."

Later that morning there was a knock on my door and a friend, I'll call her Betty, was standing there holding something in her hand. She explained that a mutual friend, I'll call her Mary, (someone I knew but not very well) had asked her to give something to me because Betty knew me a little better than Mary did. In her hand was a plaque with my name - Donna - on it. Underneath my name was the meaning of my name. It read "Lady."

So many things God spoke to me that day, but the most important one was that He saw me as a lady and His promise to me that day was that He was working in my life to make me into that lady that He saw. He also showed me that He was destroying all those curse words that had been spoken over me because before I was even born, He saw me in my mother's womb and He moved upon my parents to name me Donna, the very name that meant lady. I was destined to become His lady; that lady that was in His heart when He breathed the breathe of life into me.

I still have that plaque. To this day, its sits on my bureau as a reminder that God named me Lady and it challenges me to live up to the potential God saw in me. He has called me by name!

Psalm 139 says, "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Apparently, a name is very important to God.

We see that truth over and over again in Scripture.

We see that truth, too, expressed in all the names of God we find in Scripture.

As God saw Abram as Abraham, as He saw Jacob as Israel, and as He saw Simon as Peter, so He sees the potential in each one of us. He sees us as He has called us to be, not as we are or may be at the moment.

It is His work to bring forth that potential in each one of us. Just as God fulfilled the calling in Abraham's life, in Israel's life and in Peter's life, so He will fulfill that potential in each of us. Our responsibility is to cooperate with Him, to obey Him, to love Him and continue to walk with Him, that He might accomplish all that is in His heart for each one of us.

"...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." Philippians 2:13

"...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever - do not abandon the works of your hands." Psalm 138:8

He saw Abraham as the father of many nations.

He saw Israel as an overcomer.

He saw Peter as the foundation of the church.

He saw me as a Lady.

The promise is given and God fulfills it. I was not living as a "lady" when God gave me that promise. But He showed me that He saw me as a Lady and then He began the work of healing, restoring, building and forming in my life to where I became a lady - a lady in my eyes as well as His.

Sometimes the greatest work God has to do in our lives is to get us to see what He sees and believe it can be just as He says it can be. The word is spoken by the breath of God and He calls it into being.

What has God named you?

What destiny is He fulfilling in your life?

Are you living up to your potential; the potential He has deposited in you?