He Knows My Name. . .

At work we are currently implementing a new computerized fetal monitoring surveillance and documentation system. We have had to work with an implementation team from the company from which we purchased the system and I've had to send multiple emails to several of the company's representatives for various reasons.

Image by ahhyeah via Flickr

One day this week I was finishing one of these emails and as I came to the end, out of habit I signed it with my nickname, "Frannie", which is what all the nurses in my unit call me. For a moment I wondered if I needed to write out a new signature with my official name and title, so this representative would recognize who had sent the email. Then I realized how silly this was.

"No, Chas knows who I am. He knows my name. He even knows my nickname," I thought.

He knows my name. What a comforting thought. Don't we all love to be recognized by someone, especially someone whose opinion we value, or someone we feel kindly toward, or someone we love? To know they recognize our face and know our name is so nice. To know they know our nickname, call us by special names, nicknames or endearments is even better.

My husband has only called me "Frannie" once that I can remember in the thirty years we have been married. But, as a character in one of my favorite movies says, he calls me "something infinitely more dear". He calls me "Sweetie pie". In turn, I call him "Honey bun". It just seems like the perfect reply, doesn't it? Anyone else calling me such a name (or definitely calling HIM by such a name) would not meet with the same smiling response. We have earned the right to use such endearments by our long and loving relationship with each other.

There is One, however, who has earned the right to call us by a name that only He knows and that is of His choosing. He purchased that right with His own blood, with His own life. The Lord Jesus gave His life to call us His brethren, and His friends. One day, He will give us a name that only He knows, a special endearment just between the two of us. . . a token of His love and devotion and sacrifice for us. And we will give Him a name as well. We will bow our knee, along with every person ever born, and call Him King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to the glory of God the Father.

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. "
Revelation 2:17

"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. "
Philippians 2:10,11

"And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written,
KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. "
Revelation 19:16