NAMING THE BABY!                  GP 338            2/75

         1. It's a part of your job to seek the Lord earnestly to find out what name the Lord would have you give to your child. Because that's quite a responsibility, choosing a name which he will have to bear for the rest of his life! I know I've done it several times & it has been a very sobering thought & I have really prayed very earnestly about it & sought the Lord very earnestly each time as we named one of our children, that it would be the name that GOD wanted them to have.
         2. As so often happens, we give our children names of Bible heroes & others that we would like them to be like or that we admire. We sometimes name them in honour of the person or the individual in God's Word or in the history of His Church that we really admire & think a great deal of & wish to honour by naming our child after him, hoping of course that our child will be like him.
         3. But when we don't make our own choices we're shrinking from our job & our own responsibility & the main purpose for which we were placed here, & that is to make choices, to make decisions in the Lord & under His guidance so that He will see what we will do or what we will choose or decide.
         4. When Adam was alone in the Garden after God made him & all the animals, God brought each of the animals to him to see what he would name them!--Gen.2:19. How about that!
         5. One of the first parts of Man's education was "naming the baby"! GOD wanted to see what MAN would call them. Now WHY did God want to see what MAN would call the animals? He had made Adam HOW?--He had made him in HIS Own image, after HIS Own likeness.
         6. Adam was like God!--He had the majesty of choice, he could do GOOD or EVIL, & he was similar to God in his thinking & in his emotions & in his personality. Adam resembled God, & this was the thing which God did in order to make Man to resemble Himself & be very like Himself in many ways, in His image & His likeness.
         7. So God created all of these animals to be companions for Man, to be a help to Man, to bear his burdens, to sing him songs, to keep him company, to furnish him with power, transportation & companionship.
         8. God Himself uses animals & the names of animals to describe Man. He uses these very NAMES for animals & these very animals to be used as examples of men, describing the characteristics & the dispositions of men, like Herod "that old fox", etc. Then He speaks of some people as being "dogs" or "pigs" or "swine".
         9. God uses many examples of the creatures that He has made to compare Man to them & their characteristics, using these animals as examples & illustrations of the personality traits of Man himself, amazing illustrations of Man & his personality, so that some men are like these different animals.
         10. So Adam's task of "naming the baby" or naming the animals was a very important one, naming them whatever name he thought fit them according to their animalistic characteristics, or their characteristics possibly resembling Man or however he named them. Apparently it was quite interesting to God to see what Man would call them. The Bible says that He brought them unto Adam to SEE what he would call them.--Gen.2:19.
         11. Well, why did God create us to respond to His Creation in various ways & to see how we would respond & what choices we would make & what DECISIONS we would make with the majesty of choice that He's given us? Why did God do that?--You tell me! Apparently it's of interest to God to see what His creature, Man, will do under certain circumstances, how he will respond to certain stimuli & how he will react under certain conditions.
         12. He has to give us the opportunity to have our own way & choice to see if we will do our OWN will or HIS Will or the DEVIL'S will or whatever we will do. So all of His Creation has been made for a PURPOSE, & WHY God made it is His OWN business!
         13. It's like the things we wrote about sex.--"You don't have to be a doctor to enjoy it, you don't have to UNDERSTAND electricity to USE it!" So you don't have to know WHY God made the World & us & the animals & all in order to ENJOY it & to LIVE in it & to take PART in it & to enjoy LIFE & to enjoy LOVE & to enjoy helping OTHERS & so on!
         14. All we know is, God did it, & I'm sure He did it for whatever reasons He felt best, for His sake & our sake & the sake of a lesson to all the Universe. Perhaps it's a great lesson to all the Spirit World & all the gods & goddesses & the good spirits & evil spirits, including the Devil himself, to give them a good sample of what is RIGHT & what is WRONG & how that right pays off & wrong pays off too!
         15. So I'm sure God had a reason for all of this, & one of the main reasons was to give us a CHOICE, give us a chance to MAKE a choice, & He was INTERESTED in the choices that we & Adam would make.
         16. So Adam must have had quite a time trying to name all the animals! Even though a satisfactory personal helpmate was NOT found amongst all the animals for Adam, perhaps God had to SHOW him this. Maybe this was a part of the whole process of Adam's education: Adam looked each of the animals over & examined their characteristics & their physiques & their traits & their looks trying to decide not only on a NAME but which one would be the best buddy for him, which one could be his PET or his PAL or his COMPANION.
         17. Apparently Adam wasn't completely satisfied with any of them even though he named them all. None of them fully met his needs, there wasn't ONE found amongst ALL of them that was the real HELPMEET for him he really needed. They all had their helpfulness & their companionship & many of them had their usefulness, but not amongst any of them could Adam find one that he would choose for a mate or a helpmeet.--And you know what God finally did about that, of course!
         18. God finally created a very lovely helpmeet for him like himself, which of course was undoubtedly God's intention all along, but He just wanted to see what Adam's reaction would be when Adam found himself still all alone. Even with all those animals & all those birds he STILL wasn't happy. He was still quite lonely because he hadn't found anybody who was really like himself & could be considered his MATE.
         19. So the dear Lord had to show Adam this to perhaps help him to see his need so he'd appreciate her when she arrived. Otherwise he might have neglected her or not have been as thankful for her as he should have been.
         20. But Adam must've been pretty desperate for a mate by the time he got through examining & naming all of the animals & trying to choose a helpmeet & not finding one amongst them! He must have been pretty desperate for companionship when he couldn't find a mate amongst all the animals.
         21. So by that time he was ripe & ready for Eve, & when he woke up & saw her there, after being put under God's anaesthesia in order to create her out of his side near his heart, he must have just about flipped!
         22. That reminds me of some of you guys, you've probably felt like that sometimes! "Lord, here I am living with all these animals & all these queer birds & whatnot in these Homes!--Why don't You send me along a MATE?"
         23. Just be patient & wait & pray & keep looking, & one of these days you may wake up & find her lying right there beside you & say, "Wow!--Hallelujah!--This is what I've been looking for all the time!"
         24. But if you just wait & be patient, God always brings along the right mate at the right time, & by that time you'll really appreciate her. Probably if He jumped the gun & brought her too soon you wouldn't be very thankful & you wouldn't have had a chance to look over all the other animals & all the other birds & realise that that wasn't where it was AT, & that wasn't what you were looking for.
         25. Otherwise if He brought your little Eve on the scene too soon, you might keep on looking after you found her!--Ahem!--As some of you apparently HAVE, sad to say! So maybe God's waiting process is part of the process of testing YOU first of all to see what kind of DECISION you'll make, & last of all to see if you're willing to WAIT & be PATIENT & let the LORD make the decision for that matter, bringing the right one along.
         26. In a way that's what God finally did with Adam: He really finally had to let God make the decision. He didn't find anybody that suited him, anything that suited him, & so he didn't know what to do. Well, by that time he was really ready for God's choice, wasn't he?
         27. And of course, God always chooses the best & what's best for us, the unbeatable choice, & Adam was really ready for her when God created her!--Amen? So that may be one reason why God lets us go through these experiences where we have to make decisions & choices & have patience & wait.
         28. That way we can learn how to be patient, which takes faith, & how to wait, which takes trusting God, & how to make the right kind of a DECISION, which takes a lot of looking over of other animals & birds FIRST to make sure you know that's not where it's at, until you finally find the RIGHT one.
         29. So praise God for this final helpmeet that God gave for Adam & for bringing all the animals & all the birds to him to prove he couldn't find anybody better even though he tried'm all! He finally brought him the right one! And, thank God, Adam had enough sense to recognise right away that she WAS the right one for him! And what did he do?--He immediately NAMED her!
         30. He just right off the bat named her & said, "She shall be called Woman!"--Gen.2:23. Is that what YOU would have done? Is that what YOU did when you first met YOUR wife, fellas? Did you say, "This is the one! This is MY kind of gal!--Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, this is MY kind!--And I'm going to call you honey or baby or sweetheart or love-dove or love"--or whatever you call your dear little one!
         31. Have you got a special pet name for her that you've named her? Well then, for goodness sake, why should you PARENTS worry so over naming your CHILDREN & always looking around for somebody ELSE to make the decision for you & wanting your LEADERS to please name the baby, when you've been knowing that baby was on the way for NINE MONTHS!
         32. It certainly seems like nine months was enough time for you to be thinking of names, even if you had to get a NAME book & look'm all up to see what KIND of names you like! There are some baby food agencies & baby milk & formula agencies that put out NAME BOOKS of the various kinds of names there are for boys & girls, if you can't find a name you like in the BIBLE.
         33. We like to name our kids Bible names. But from the names SOME of you folks havechosen for YOURSELVES from some of the strange characters in the Bible that I wouldn't want to be associated with myself, I'd hate to be YOUR baby if you're gonna pick MY name!
         34. Some of you have really picked the weird names of the kind of characters in the Bible that weren't exactly HEROES! In fact, some were downright fiendish VILLAINS. So I don't know why in the world some of you guys would want to pick names like that! This has been a kind of a pet peeve with me for quite awhile now!
         35. Some of you boys even picked girl's names, & some of you girls picked boy's names!Apparently you didn't look'm up in the Bible to see WHO they were, you just liked the SOUND of the name!--And you didn't even look up in the Bible to see what the MEANING of the name was!--Why, it could have been "cut-throat" or "damned liar" or "Jacob the Deceiver" or "crook" or whatever!
         36. But you apparently weren't a bit interested in what the name meant or who it was for! You just picked it because it SOUNDED pretty, or at least nobody ELSE had that name yet! Well, I want to tell you, I've been on a BEEF about this NAMING business for a LONG time!
         37. When we suggested for you to pick a Bible name, we didn't mean for you to just put them in a hat, including all the villains & all the evil characters & all the bad guys & bad girls in the Bible & just shuffle them up & pull ANY one out! We thought of course you'd pick one that you KNEW was a GOOD Bible character you LIKED & wanted to BE like & knew what KIND of character he or she was! We thought you'd pick some kind of a name that was halfway DECENT & had some halfway GOOD MEANING or was at least something NICE or even PRETTY or GOOD--certainly not some of the WORST characters in history!
         38. We don't only have to start naming the babies, but maybe we ought to start doing a little renaming of ourselves! Some of you people who either had a bad name picked for you, or you accidentally picked a bad name yourself without knowing what you were doing, you'd better go back to the BIBLE & STUDY UP on a few of those names & read your BIBLE a little more & try to find out who were the GOOD characters & who were the GOOD guys & the GOOD girls & the ones you'd like to be LIKE & you'd like to be NAMED after & the ones you'd like to name your CHILDREN after!
         39. Don't pick a name just because it is a cute sounding name that you never saw before & you just found it in the list at the back of the Bible under proper names so you just decided, "THIS sounds kind of nice!"
         40. And you ought to at least look it up in the Bible & see how to pronounce it right so that people would RECOGNISE it as a Bible name when they heard it! What if you heard some strange weirdo called "Ad-dame" instead of ADAM?--Instead of EVE you heard her called "Ee-vee" or something like that! It would sound kind of PECULIAR, wouldn't it?
         41. So for God's sake, let's try to pick a few decent names of a few decent characters in the Bible & learn how to pronounce them instead of just closing your eyes & running your finger down the page & grabbing the first one it stops on!
         42. So for God's sake don't curse your poor little innocent baby with a strange name to have to carry around for the rest of his life, or he'll certainly want to CHANGE it as soon as he finds out how BAD it is!
         43. You certainly need to study the names & the significance of the names, the MEANINGS of the names, the PRONUNCIATIONS of the names & what KIND of characters in the Bible had those names! There were some beautiful names with beautiful pronunciations that even had beautiful meanings that were given to some pretty vile characters in the Bible!--Apparently their PARENTS had better hopes for them than they FINALLY turned out to BE, but I wouldn't particularly want to be NAMED after one of them!
         44. So why don't you go through your Bible list of proper names at the back of your Bible & look up some of these characters. If you can't think of one right off that you're already fond of, look them up & see what kind of a PERSON they were. Or really pray & ask GOD to give you a good name.
         45. You or your baby don't necessarily have to be named after somebody in the Bible. There are a lot of famous men & great characters & wonderful women throughout history that you may admire, great Christians & great Christian leaders, great heroes & heroines of history. You're perfectly welcome to name yourself &/or your child after ANY of these whom you admire & whose names you like & which is pleasing to your mate--& we HOPE it'll be pleasing to your CHILD!
         46. So for God's sake & yours, if Adam could name all the animals & all the birds & finally pick a name for his own wife, you certainly ought to be able in nine months to pick a name for your child!--Amen? God bless you! Happy hunting!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family