Name Tags

Name tags seem to be a part of the working world of America. Some names are stitched on shirts. Some are attached with magnets. Some with pins. Some bear a company logo. Some are in cursive. Some in plain print. All stand for belonging, being part of that group.

Several years ago, I lost a job in which I had felt very valued and valuable. I got home and took off my name tag. As I held it in my hand, I found myself surprised that my name was still on it, next to the company logo. I had once belonged and now I didn't.

It is never this way with the Lord. We are His securely and forever. Isaiah tells us in the book in the Bible that bears his name, verse 16 of chapter 49, that we are written on the palms of His hands. The verse before this one promises us that He will never forget us. Even if a mother would have no compassion on her child, God will not forget us. Our names are tattooed, so to speak, where He can always see them.

In the same book of Isaiah, we are promised in chapter 43, verse 1, that God has called us by name. He knows my name and your name! He knows your icky middle name that you wish your mother hadn't given you. He know the first name that you aren't called but keeps popping up on mail and other computer-generated places. He knows the nickname the kids in the neighborhood had for you growing up. He knows the name you call yourself when you mess something up.

In Biblical times, a name had meaning. Parents named a child for events around their birth or for what trait they wished that child would have.Jacob, as is recorded in Genesis 25:26, was named for what went on during his birth. He came out holding onto his twin brother's heel. So his parents gave him a name that sounded like the word for "heel" in Hebrew. Evidently there was a common image at this time that pictured someone who was deceiving someone else as hanging onto his heel as he tricked him. And Jacob lived up to the name, tricking his brother out of the coveted birthright.  

If others could see inside us, they might have change in the name they called us. Maybe "Screw-up"or "Worry Wart," or "Coward," or "Traitor." But no matter what's name we might think we deserve for the mess that's deep inside us, God sees what's there and loves us.

He loves us so much that a relationship with his created beings was always what He desires the most. That relationship could never have happened (Great, powerful, holy God way out of ordinary, messed up man's reach) without something changing. A common denominator had to be established. The chemistry had to be changed in this oil and water situation. A common language had to be created, so to speak. A common meeting place had to be set up between the King who controls everything, and me and you, the needy peasants who have to admit that we can't control anything for long.  

God, in His ingenuous answer to this dilemma, sent a representative of Himself into the world. The common denominator was humanity. He represented both the oil of being a human being with the water of being a holy God. His language was love, but not fallible human love, but lasting, unbreakable love that only God could generate and sustain.

Jesus Christ, this representative, didn't come to earth to show us how it's done, like a do-it-yourself show on television. The common meeting place of God and man was not in the arena if self-effort where we look at His example and give it a try. The place which made it possible for God to meet man one-on-one was a cemetery. A place people only entered to carefully lay their loved ones to rest. Not the throne room of a palace. Not in a court of law where earthly power, which at this era in history was purely Roman, but location where a man was taken after his execution.

Why and how did an empty grave spark a reunion with a compassionate Father and His rebellious created beings? That criminal, in the eyes of those who had him killed, was totally innocent. Not just of the crimes that the angry mob shouted out, but of everything. He was sinless.

Each one of us, the created beings, are full of trash inside. We have messed up. We have hurt others and ourselves deeply. We have tried to be our own god, and we have failed.We have sinned.

This man, Jesus, died in our place. He suffered, so that we wouldn't have to. He with a clean record, voluntarily switched it with our long rap sheet. We ended up with a clean sheet. He ended up with all that we'd ever done on his record.

What is needed is that each of us admit that we each need Him. I needed a clean slate, when at the age of sixteen, I realized that He had been patiently waiting all my life for me to come to Him. All the pieces of the puzzle came together. I became His.

And so, I have a name tag that can never be taken away. There will never be a day when I will hold my name tag, which assures me that I am His precious child, in my hand and wonder why I don't belong anymore. I am His. And it doesn't depend on me. He is the one who put my name on His hand, where it can never be washed off. Not only do I think I'm valued and valuable to Him. I am. I belong.    

Where do you belong? Does the name on your shirt or your name tag describe who you really are? Are you written on the hand of the One who made you and loves you?