By Name

"The sheep hear His voice and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out" John 10:3. He calls me by name. That verse came to light in Mississippi for me. As it struck me the words, "I have called you by name, you are Mine" came into my head from the familiar song. Over our spring break trip to Bay St. Louis to do Hurrican Katrina relief, I had the pleasure of meeting the crew chief of our house project. He was very particular about how he wanted things to be done. The first day was rather frustrating to some of our group because he did most things himself instead of letting us help or do some of the measuring and marking. We were starting the construction of a house on about 10-foot stilts. Anyway, you see where this is going- we were all having a hard time being productive and being loud while having fun was not advisable. About half way through the day I decided to enact some of the things I have learned from a lifetime of trying to meet people where they are as well as the knowledge I have gained from my elementary education classes. I decided to be exactly what he was asking for. I stood beside him and asked questions. Knowing the answer was of no importance, asking the questions was. Somehow he started to like me and we began to strike up a rather intriguing conversation. He was hard of hearing and so would get flustered and nervous when people got loud. He had bad previous experience with a bunch of students and so was hesitant to let us do things without tight supervision. It all made sense really and instead of us helping the situation and being willing to bend ourselves to getting to know him and seeing it from his perspective we were more inclined to get angry that he wasn't letting us help.

He had made the comment on the first day that he was terrible with names. It was true. After the second day, however, he knew my name. It was the craziest feeling for such a simple thing but I'm not sure if I've ever felt so proud of my name and ever realized how much more gripping it will feel when God Himself says it someday. He called me by name. By that simple word "Katie" he accepted me. He deemed me worthy.

I say all of this not to point out my great deed but to make two points. One: we often do not take ourselves out of situations and look at it from another person's angle. There are always under-the-surface factors involved that we must step back and see before we cast judgements and make situations worse. Second, that Jesus accepts us. He calls us by name and we are His. It's such a comforting place, a place where we can leave everything that is going on in our lives and feel whole and know that we matter there. I want to be a person who calls people by name. I want people to feel at home with me because they know I've accepted them. They know I truly love them. The only way I can do that is to focus on Jesus and see that it is evil and not we ourselves that should be treated like evil. We must cast evil out and hate it but we must learn how to love the fallible humans that lay beneath those sometimes dark deeds. It's the old saying, "love the sinner, hate the sin" but it's so true. If we allow our emotions to guide us we will get angry when things aren't right, but if we let Jesus guide us we will love the sinner inspite of what they do.