Daniel 1:1-8
When I was younger, I had thick curly hair. I don't know how many ladies came up to me when I was a child and said something like, "I have to pay a lot money to have hair like that." I didn't see my hair as a blessing. That was a time when men didn't have curly hair. My mother tried every shampoo which promised to prevent hair from tangling. I didn't see how any of them helped. She brushed my hair, catching every knot and tangle. Then she combed it to make sure, snagging anything she missed with the brush.
Imagine my surprise when I found out one of the meanings of my name. "City of the curly headed people." No joke.
Eventually my family genes caught up with me so that I no longer have thick curly hair. Wavy, yes, if I let it grow (rarely). Curly and thick - not any more. The boys tease me a little about that, reminding me of how the name no longer fits. I remind them of one of the other meanings for my name - "Loyal soldier." I like that. That's what I want to be.
Names are important. Ask General Motors. They once tried to market the "Nova" in South America. Sales tanked because "nova" means "doesn't go" in Spanish.
Daniel and his friends originally had names which reflected the goodness of God's character. Daniel's name meant, "God is my judge." Hananiah meant "The Lord is gracious." Mishael's name asked the rhetorical question, " Who is like God?" Azariah reminded him that "The Lord has helped."
They were given new names in keeping with the fact that they now served a new pagan king in a new place. The man assigned to train them was very shrewd in renaming them. Remove their identity. Take away their dignity. Break their spirits in order to remake them.
Their new names reflected the gods of the new place. Belteshazzar was "keeper of Bel's treasures." Shadrach meant "inspiration of the sun (Shah)." Meshach literally implied that he belonged to the goddess Shach. Finally, Abednego was a "servant of Nego."
Even though they faced great pressure to conform to their new names, it is interesting that they did not. When it came time to take food and drink which would cause them to disobey God, they held their ground because 1) they knew it was wrong, and 2) they knew that they really belonged to God, despite the new names given to them.
In our day and age we don't pay much attention to the meanings of our formal names. But we still face pressure to take on new names. For a long time I thought I was "Not Good Enough." I have met people over the years who thought they were "Mess Up," "Unlovable," "Beyond Hope," "Can't Get it Right," "Can't Do It," "Loser," "Stupid," "Unwanted," "Failure."
Some names are given to us by others, some we give ourselves. But there is a name God wants us to take on - His. Daniel and his friends already knew what John told his readers - "To all those who received him he gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12) We often quote this verse in relation to salvation, but it also tells us something about the new people we are in Jesus Christ - God's Children.
The secret to Daniel and his friends' strength was their identity. They knew they belonged to God, and no one else.
Do we have that same sense? Or have we taken on names not intended for us? God has a name for us. It is "My Child."
Let me leave you with these words of hope from Revelation 3:11-12. "I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name."
Copyright 2006