My name is not Sharon, but Sharon is a fine and lovely name.
However, there is a woman who thinks my name is Sharon. I’ll call her ‘Sonja.’ ‘Sonja’ keeps sending me emails and wants me to renew a subscription to a certain website. She’s already sent me three emails.
I’ve started wondering why ‘Sonja’ calls me Sharon. I can only imagine.
Perhaps one day ‘Sonja’ spilled her pumpkin spice latte on her ‘dry clean only’ shirt. As she frantically tried to dab up the hot beverage that was searing her skin, she totally forgot that her next email client was ‘Joy.’ Instead, her beleaguered mind supplied the name ‘Sharon,’ and I’ve been ‘Sharon’ every since.
OR, maybe one day ‘Sonja’ was working on an email to Sharon when a giant spider crawled down her back. In her frenzy to get the thing off, she fell backwards in her swiveling office chair and crashed into the ceramic tile floor. This resulted in a terrible concussion. Afterwards, everyone became ‘Sharon.’
I’m starting to worry about ‘Sonja.’ I’m also starting to wonder if I should buy her another latte or suggest she change cubicles.
But I am still not Sharon.
I was given the name ‘Joy’ when I was a squalling newborn, and I have normally enjoyed its brevity. While my long-named childhood friends labored over tons of little circles on their standardized tests, the tip of my pencil was barely smudged. At the same time, ‘Joy’ is not a highly romantic name. You probably need at least eight letters and three syllables to have a highly romantic name. As a fiction author, I do like highly romantic names like…Arabella.
Names are personal. They become intertwined with our identity, so it’s a big deal if someone calls us by the wrong name and we start believing them. I don’t want to wake up one day and tell someone my name is Sharon just because ‘Sonja’ said so. That would be weird and sad and a lie.
Perhaps this ongoing pandemic has made matters worse. Sequestered behind masks or within walls of isolation, we may be listening to other voices or believing lies that insinuate we’re not who we really are.
Where do lies come from? I actually googled this, and ‘the almighty search engine’ gave me 33 million websites, beginning with head lice…o don’t bother with Google. The answer is easy to find in John 8:44 where Jesus calls the devil a liar and the ‘father of lies.’
And with more digging we discover this in 1 Peter 5:8:
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
I imagine our enemy would prefer we don’t remember his existence. He has crept around this planet a long time, sprinkling doubt and deception about like flower petals. Remember Eve?
But let’s not be his next victim either.
The best way to combat the ‘father of lies’ is with the ‘Father of Truth.’ God’s truth, embodied through Christ, will incinerate every lie. I’d say the following truth is among the devil’s most hated:
But to all who did receive Him (Christ), He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name,
John 1:12
If John 1:12 is your reality (and I pray that it is), Isaiah 43:1 is also your reality:
But now, this is what the LORD says—
He who created you, Jacob,
He who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.”
So the next time a lie comes prowling and it surely will, remember what the Father of Truth calls his kiddos:
“Mine.”
You are who God says you are.
Until next time…
