The Reconstructed

Hopefully, you have a good relationship with your name. I often don’t know how to introduce myself, whether James or Jimmy. Very few people call me Jim and a good many call me Pipes. I don’t really know if who I introduce myself as ever actually sticks. Within a name is an association, and the association of someone’s name in our minds matters as much as the name itself. Often with names we associate a feeling. 

To the Hebrews a name is an essence, a permanent association. You can’t separate God’s name from who God is, which is why taking God’s name in vain is a sin, which is to say, believing the wrong things about God. We cannot possibly rightly ascribe to God things about God that are not true. It is a sin for me to accuse God of something untrue about God even in ignorance which I often do. I am aware God is merciful. The Father can handle human misunderstanding, even allows Himself to be misunderstood, ultimately, with the hope that He is sought and then understood. God wants to be known. Enter Jesus.

I do often wonder though, aren’t there easier ways to be known, like a big reveal or a show, a persistent reminder of a visible, tangible, permeating of everything, presence? Sometimes it feels so hard to get God to show up in a way that consumes everything. 

And this is why I wonder if there is something in us that is still not ready, that still can’t stand in the fullness, that perhaps I’m still lacking something or too many things within my own character to be able to stand before God. Yet we are invited to come boldly.

Here is what I’m ultimately moving towards with this line of the prayer. That the name of God is the name above all names, but wait. Isn’t the name of Jesus also the name at which every knee will bow. What about things asked for in Christ’s name? Jesus seems to turn his attention elsewhere, to the name of the Father. Jesus has shown us the Father is what he tells his disciples. Jesus is essentially reminding us of, not a Pantheistic, “god is everything and everything is god.” Instead, this name, of this God, of this Father, is the author of everything else and has power over every created thing. Because of this, it is in our best interest and our greatest joy to know this name, this essence. Yes, there is a lot to know. A lot of our limited amount of time spent here is meant to be spent getting to know God, but how else can we actually live? 

If God is in fact everything God claims to be then God must be worth our time. But does it depend on what we can ask of God, especially in a world that can often feel like it’s lacking and that some things are missing? 

That’s what I’m exploring next as we get into asking for the Kingdom.