He knows your name.
I mean, that’s a pretty crazy concept if you really think about it. I’m the world’s worst person when it comes to remembering names and will forget a person’s name milliseconds after introducing himself. And the God of the universe knows your name. He’ll never forget it. He knew your name before you were even born, before your parents even considered having a baby, before your parents’ parents’ parents’ parents were even in existence in this world. God already knew you by name.
It’s assessment time in my preschool-teaching world, and I’ve been asking the kids if they know their parents’ names. Their answers are pretty typical for 3-4 year olds.
Me: What is your Mommy’s name?
Preschooler: Mommy!
Me: Does Miss Kaitlyn call your mommy, “Mommy”?
Preschooler: No.
Me: So, what is your Mommy’s name? She’s not my mommy.
Preschooler: Um….
Me: What do Mommy’s friends call her?
Preschooler: Mommy!
Me: No.
Preschooler: Um…
Me: What do other people call Mommy? What does Daddy call Mommy?
Preschooler: Um…
During one of these endless going-in-circles conversations with one of my kids, a shy grin slowly crept its way across her face, and as she gazed at the floor, she quietly said, “Well….sometimes Daddy calls Mommy ‘honey’!” She started giggling, as did I and the other teacher in the room.
Aside from the humor, I think it’s a great picture of how God sees us. We come into this world thinking that Mommy and Daddy are the actual names of our parents, because that is what we are taught to call them. Only later do we come to realize that they have individual, specific names that are unique to them.
Like children, we are born into God’s kingdom with a misperception of our name. We think our name is Broken. We think our name is Afraid. We think our name is Forgotten. We think our name is Ashamed. We think our name is Alone.
In this life, we are pulled in many directions and called many different names depending on what situation we’re in. I almost instantly aged 30 years when the manager at Jiffy Lube glanced at my file and called me “Mrs. Baker” – I mean, that’s my mom’s name, not mine. The kids at my preschool call me “Miss Kaitlyn”…or, more often than I’d like, “TEACHERRRRRRRRRRRR!” My son Logan calls me “Mommy” and “Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING TO ME Mommy.” My mom calls me a lot of different names. My fiancé calls me a lot of cute nicknames, but for me, it’s extremely special when he just calls me “Kaitlyn.” I like it when he calls me that because it’s not very often that I actually hear my specific name.
God knows your name. To him, there are no nicknames, pet names, formal names, authoritative names, corporate names – he knows your name. In fact, I think he knows you by a name so specific, you won’t even find out what it is until you get to heaven and see how he’s written your name in the Book of Life.
