Renamed

I grew up with a love-hate relationship with my name. “Randy” just never seemed cool enough or tough enough. I had friends named, Bob, Joe, Al, John, Roger and David and for some reason I saw them as regular “guys”. It was like I had a mental image in my head that said, “Their name can beat up my name.” The “y” on the end of my name had a girlie sound to it in my thinking. Of course, it didn’t help anything when in 7th grade a new girl showed up at my school with my name. The fact that her name ended with an “I” did nothing to ease my angst.

For a little while I tried my legal name, “Randall”. That was until a junior high teacher started saying, “Good morning Ran-doll” and all the Bobs, Joes and Johns around me started having way too much fun at my expense with the “doll” part of that equation. So, did I say I had a love-hate relationship with my name? Maybe if you figure it as 10% love and 90% hate.

Somewhere in high school everyone started calling each other by their last names and that came just in time to save some of my tattered self-image. “Dean” felt cool. But then the summer before I went to college I got a job working with a couple of British seminary students and all it took was a moment of weakness on my part when I introduced myself, “Hi. I’m Randy”. Do you know what I mean when I describe that awkwardly long wait for someone to stop laughing at you so you can ask them, “Did I say something funny?” only to have them start laughing again? If you aren’t sure what’s funny about my aforementioned introduction look up my name in a British friendly dictionary.

Well, all of that is to say that I have always been fascinated with how quickly and easily God took to changing names in the Bible. Abram to Abraham, Simon to Peter, Saul to Paul. I completely understand why God needed to do this in some cases just from the standpoint of the need for these folks to drop their previous self-loathing behavior. A name was a prophecy and a name was a destiny.

So, without going to court for a legal name change, I have, a long time ago, found my way to be renamed. I am convinced more people need the same spiritual therapy. Self-prophecy, empowered by the Holy Spirit, will do you more good than you may be able to imagine. In fact, one scripture says, “making melody with (and in) your heart”. That means change the internal dialogue, find your name and every time you hear it….say “AMEN!”