God Speaks To Us Through Our Name

In Stasi Eldredge's book, Becoming Myself, she wrote that her name, Stasi, means resurrection. She went on to explain that her parents named her Stasi, but God named her resurrection. She also shared that this is appropriate because God has resurrected those parts of her heart that were dead, and now she knows her purpose because she knows her name. This has led her to reaching to all women who are broken and looking for God, so in a way she is the tool that God uses to resurrect other women. She encourages her readers to look at the meaning of your name and let God reveal who you are through what he has named you.

Kenneth means born of fire. Dale means dweller in the valley. So, my Father has named me born of fire and dwells in the valley. This shook me. During the boot camp I attended in August 2013, I shared that I heard compassionate son as the image of God I reflect in my masculinity. My Lord is a man who was unafraid of a fight and he also was most likely to be found where those who society and religion wrote off were congregating. In our time we reserve the valley as where we find our selves when something bad happens. "I'm in the valley and it's dark" or "I'll climb back to the peaks in time." So, my Father says I reflect his compassion and I should not be afraid to make a stand and dwell in the valley to free those who are prisoners bound by the kingdom of darkness. This was an incredible moment for me.

I then decided to look at my brides name and see what God named her through her parents. Susan means lily, and Marguerite means pearl. I asked God to reveal to me what he was trying to tell me in this exercise.  The first verse that came to mind was from Song of Songs 2:2, where Solomon say "Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the young women. The second place he led me was to Matthew 13: 45-46, Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant of fine pearls, who, on finding one of great value, went and sold all that he had an bought it. The Father revealed to me that in the hurt and nastiness of life Susan shows beauty, and for me she represents the single pearl of great value who is worth all that I have. 

This revelation brought me back to a lesson I have been learning since May 13, 2013, when Susan left me for two nights and my back was firmly against the wall. Our Father has been active since that evening using what the enemy had used in his determination to destroy our marriage, into a tool that God is using to make us stronger than before. All I can really say is the valley is dark and deep, but grace runs deeper.  Use me Trinity to free those prisoners bound in the kingdom of darkness.

2014 - A New Year A New Perspective

Physicists say they are able to get to 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds, (10^-43), of the big bang. Yet, even though this number is so incredibly small, physicists admit that at present they cannot get to absolute t = 0, because they cannot fathom the “singularity” that existed before the universe began. As close as the theorists are to t = 0 it is difficult to comprehend that they are unable to get there. So the question is why can’t they get all the way to t = 0? Why does it remain just beyond their grasp? While it is so close it might as well be billions of miles away!

The reason is because what the physicists are seeking is before existence, and before time. They are trying to explain pre-creation and I believe this will always be beyond them. Pre-creation is the “realm” of the trinity, the fellowship of the trinity with one another. This fellowship was so wonderful, so glorious that Jesus prayed about it in the garden before he was arrested. John 20:24; “Father I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” Before the universe, Jesus was with his Father and he wants to return to that relationship. All we can postulate from this prayer is the trinity was together, and their existence preceded everything we can see, touch, smell, taste and hear. Therefore their realm will always be beyond our grasp, because the trinity did not come from us but before us. What an incredible testimony of the fellowship of the trinity the most intelligent people among us are giving the rest of us whether they will admit it or not. These incredibly intelligent people can make sense of the universe to a very short time after the universe came into being, but they are unable to explain or even describe t = 0 or before.

In the boot camps that John Eldredge hosts he shares that we can try to understand the fellowship of the trinity by looking at the opening scene of Last of the Mohicans. The scene opens and we see three people running through the woods. Two are together and the third is someplace else within the same woods running and driving a deer to a specific place in the woods. It is this picture that the physicists are trying to deduce and t = 0 is meaningless as a result. This movement together, this fellowship of the trinity we are only able to get a brief glimpse of it in reality through words like the prayer of Jesus in John 20:24.

The reason I am sharing these thoughts is because I was very full of myself during my 20 – 30’s. I loved that science could provide so many explanations about our universe and our existence. I also had a deep desire for science to render God unimportant. I wanted to find life elsewhere on Mars for instance, because I believed that would prove that God does not exist. Truthfully, I must be honest and confess I hated God. Yet the trinity would not give me up. I was continually being drawn to thinking about God and I also began having revelations in the form of questions that were and remain difficult to answer. The following is among some of the many questions that tormented me:

• If I am so special why is my life so messed up?
• If I am so amazing why do I feel so small when standing on the shore of God’s ocean?
• If I am so deep and contemplative why was I so humbled by God’s Grand Canyon?
• If I’ve got all the answers why am I so angry?
• If I judge others so harshly why do I not judge myself as harshly since I do the same things?
• If I know it all why aren’t I satisfied and content with life?
• If I am so significant why do I see all the stars as they were and not as they are right now?
• If I am so great why doesn’t the world recognize that?

I believe these questions came about from the spirit through nudging, whispers, and promptings to make me look at myself with no blinders on. I also began to notice that things I had read previously in the word seemed to yield new discoveries for me as though I was reading the verse for the first time. I also experienced the nudging, whispering, and prompting through the writings of others such as Jennifer Rothchild, Henry Blackaby and sons, Philip Yancey, Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, and John Eldredge among others. Revelations also began coming to me through songs, and movies as well as brothers. The trinity also used nature to speak to me of the glorious realm before time. It was especially through the words and thoughts of John Eldredge that the trinity started touching deep places within me. Eldredge asked, “Why do certain images and movie scenes resonate so deeply within us?”, and I began to ask the trinity this question about myself. The answer that came back is because this is the heart that God placed in me, and those pictures and images resonate with me because they touch the desire that is hardwired within me to drive me to God. I will find no satisfaction through anything else or anyone else, and if I try to find satisfaction elsewhere I will be frustrated at every attempt. Then in August 2013 on a small platform above a stream in the Rocky Mountains near Fraser, Colorado, the trinity revealed to me that I am called a compassionate son, because that is the image I reflect of the trinity in my masculinity.

Finally, as proof that what physicists are trying to decipher at t = 0 is unreachable; I will share a transformation in me that the trinity began bringing about in 2013. Unfortunately and foremost I had to reach bottom in order to understand the trinity, and I reached bottom the evening of May 13, 2013. Since then through therapy and the revelations I mentioned above below are words that describe me 5 years ago and words that describe me today. The contrast is startling, and this should not be possible either because there should be no reason for me to want to change or look within myself.

5 years ago                              Today

Critical                     Awakening – I’m becoming conscious of my purpose

Harsh                      Clarity – I have focus of how to respond to life

Rigid                        Grateful – Susan leaving shocked me to seeing myself

Unapproachable      Hopeful – I have tools, skills, abilities to use and change my responses

Angry                       Determined – I do not want to go back to my old life

In the garden before his arrest Jesus prayed that we would see his glory that was before the world. I reflect some of that glory through compassion which is why I was created and why I exist. Physicists can try to get to t = 0, but in reality all they really need to do is look at those who know their purpose and reflect characteristics of the trinity and they will get a glimpse of what t = 0 was like.