How Do They Call You?
- Aug 3, 2016
- 3 min read
Click on the pink name tag for a special treat!
So, I was watching that One Night with the King movie and really took note when King Xerxes asked Esther, “How Do They Call You? I also heard the same question, phrased exactly the same when inquiring someone’s name in another biblical movie. Then I heard it again in the classic epic Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston. It seems to me that’s how people of those times asked one another “What’s your name?”
In those ancient times, your name meant much more than something you were called to get your attention. It meant your past, your present, and your future. Your name meant your status, your position in society. In those times, your name meant everything and it was chosen with a specific purpose. Not because it was the popular boy’s name of the day. Not because it sounded cute or adorable; a name had meaning, it had purpose.
In those same days, when God decided to work through a person or even bless them, He had to change their name. Before God can use us to His perfect will He must change our name.
He had to change Sarai’s name to Sarah before He could make her the mother of all nations. All she wanted was a child of her own. She had one through her servant Hagar, and Hagar mocked her, but Sarai caused that herself. God didn’t tell her He would bless her through a proxy. He didn’t tell her He was going to send her, her blessing “by way of” someone else. He said, in Genesis 17:15-16., …As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai, her name will be Sarah…I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations…” - Sarai means "Princess" whereas Sarah means "Mother of Nations".
So ask yourself…How Do They Call You? Some of us have been beaten down by other folks trying to change our names…calling us worthless – ugly – fat – ignorant – loser…and we hear those negative names so often and for so long, we start to believe the lie of the name. We start to believe that we are in fact worthless and so we begin to achieve to live up to that name. We let depression get a foothold and start to slip deeper and deeper into despair and hopelessness. We let that stronghold of low self-esteem get wedged into our spirits and completely tune out the Holy Spirit crying out to us: BEAUTIFUL! BELOVED!
Hadassah was a happy young girl living in Persia. Not a care in the world. Living with her cousin, not her uncle, Mordecai was her cousin. But in any event, Hadassah was happy with her life, even though she was a Jewish girl living in a foreign land. Enter Queen Vashti, who decides not to answer when the king summoned her by name of course, the king kicked her out the palace and then sent an edict looking for a new queen. Can you imagine as a young girl being torn from your loving family and forced to live in a strange place? In this case, her cousin Mordecai gave her the new name of Esther. Of all the young women brought to the palace to be the next Queen of Persia, Hadassah now Esther was chosen queen. This young woman had some serious favor with the king, perhaps even more so than Vashti did. God positioned Hadassah to save her people from annihilation by changing her name. Once her name was changed and she went through the process of the being torn from her family, God was able to position her with favor from the king to save the Jewish nation. Hadassah means compassion – Esther means Star.
Sistahs, God has got to put you on the Potter’s wheel to mold you into the vessel that can hold blessings, not just let them waste away. That molding process hurts. Being molded, shaped and fired in the kiln to burn off those imperfections is a painful process for a Sistah to endure. But when He’s done, that lump of clay has a new name BEAUTIFUL VASE…and a new purpose.
God’s got to take you through some stuff before He can re-name you SURVIVOR! He’s got to use you in His divine plan before He can call you AMAZING! He’s got to build up your faith before He can call you a WORTHY!
So, how do they call YOU?
© 2016, Tracy Spence-Banks. All rights reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without expressed permission of the author. House of SOMS™ and SOMSistahs™ is a registered trademark of Traysea Publications.
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