What Names Are You Claiming?

Names, we all have them. Some we are born to, other's we create, others are given to us, and still others we claim. Some of them identify us, some of them signify our relationship to others, and some have the power to bring us to our knees and crumble everything we've worked so hard to build.

What names are you claiming? On the surface that's easy, mom, sister, brother, the list goes on and on. But there are other words, other names we are claiming... Failure... Broken... No good... Worthless... Used up... Trash... unlovable... Every morning we rise and pick these words up, clinging to them like a cape. A heavy mantel weighing us down, keeping us chained to lies. Keeping us enslaved. Preventing us from ever stepping into the fullness of His plan. 

So easily our issues, our illnesses, our shortcomings become the thing that defines us, a ceiling we can never break through. They leave us weary, lost, and bound to stuff we've never should have been. We get comfortable with those titles, these ugly names we've collected along our journey until they become us. We claim these names, instead of the ones we should be accepting. Names like forgiven, treasured, beloved, beyond worth. Instead, we hold on to those lies and pick them up day after day. We accept them as who we are. No matter how hard we try to escape them, to cover them up, to wear a mask, we can never be free of them until we lay them down at the cross. He's already died to wash those names away. He already broke those chains, but day after day we choose to pick them back up. We hold them clasped around our wrists, and say this is who I am.

The only way we'll ever be free is if we choose to let those shackles fall, to recognize that that may have been who we were yesterday, but that is not who we are today. We must claim His names for us, we must peel back the ugly layers until we reach the heart of the broken places that ruled our lives for so long and then we must expose those to the light. Let the names we've believed for so long fall away and replace them with what He calls us. Child, daughter, son, loved, redeemed.

Those names hold no power over you anymore, they do not define you, they do not represent you, they are not you. But you must decide to let them fall, to stop picking up the heavy mantle and lay it at His feet, and then refuse to go back to it. Refuse to ever pick it up again. No one can do this for you.

You were never meant to carry those words. Aren't you tired of carrying them? I know I am. I'm so tired of carrying those words, of letting them poison my day. Last week we talked about laying a foundation for the new year, I don't know about you, but I want my cornerstones built of lies. I want them to be made in the truth. I am loved. I am not a failure. I am not used up, because He is the one that fills me. I am not too broken, because He redeemed me. Its time to set down that cape and build on the foundation of everything we've laid down at His feet and said I can't do this, I can't do this- but you can, so I'm giving it to you.

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