Blog Post 48// Change the Name
For the first two days of my life, I was Jason Sarlo. Not Joseph. My parents had gone back and forth on what to name me and ended up going with Jason.
But then when my mom filled out the birth certificate before we left the hospital she decided to write in Joseph. What a ride, huh?
Sometimes you’ve got to change the name of something, not just to better reflect the situation, although that’s part of it, it’s more about calling out the potential outcome. We see this in scripture for sure.
In my case, it was My grandmother who said we needed something we didn’t have—a little Joey in the family. I could have done without the word little. Maybe, a 6 foot tall Joey, but nonetheless.
Don’t just think this applied to people in the Bible. It applies to problems.
I wonder what in your life needs a name change?
The way we say this is how it’s written in Romans 4:17:
…even God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were.
Another translation says: He speaks of the nonexistent things as if they already existed.
More Sarlo history. We’ve done our fair share of bowling. I know you are learning a lot today about me today, just go with it. There are times when you bowl, you don’t even need to see the ball hit the pins. You know you got ‘em.
It’s a done deal before it even is.
Friends, this is how God invites us to operate. Which, if we can remember, is how He operates.
It’s how God frames things. By words of life. It’s calling out the life.
Jesus said Lazarus, come on out.
Don’t miss the significance. What’s the use of calling out to a dead man? The dead can’t hear.
But here’s what happened: Jesus didn’t see him dead. He already saw him alive.
When you think of it like that, it makes total sense that He called him out by name.
It’s things that are not as though they were.
Sometimes the way out of something is to call some life out of it.
James said it like this:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James 1:2-3
consider= deem, suppose it to be, think
What are you saying, James? What’s he doing?
He’s giving us a lesson in training our brain.
Normally, in trial or trouble, we think frustration and pain.
James says, you gotta change the name!
What if you called it joy instead?!?
It may not be making me happy right now, but there’s something good in this.
Could there be joy in it?
You get to decide what you call it.
The truth is: You will find whatever you are looking for. You can name it Trials, that’s up to you, and you’ll experience it as such, but I’m gonna name it joy, because God is somewhere in this.
I may look like Jacob the deceiver, but I now answer to Israel the prince.
I know you know me as Simon the pebble, but my name is Peter the Rock.
You may call us hard-pressed on every side, but I’m better off thinking, but we’re not crushed.
It’s perplexing, anyone can see that, but I’m changing it to not in despair;
Sure we are persecuted, but we have never once been abandoned.
I’ve been struck down. I’ve gone through some things, but let’s call me not destroyed.
It seems like we’re dying, but that’s the perfect time to start thinking about resurrection life.
Anyone see what we’re doing here?
Yes, outwardly we are wasting away, but I’m choosing to focus on the inward me being renewed day by day by day.
I know what it looks like to you, but I’m framing this differently.
I’m honoring God with my mind—thinking like He thinks!
You say problem.
I’m thinking opportunity.
You say trial.
I’m thinking Joy.
You say mountain.
I think footstool.
You say death.
I think everlasting life.
You call it impossible.
I call it already done!
I’m just wondering if you need to stop calling things as you see them, and start calling them as you want to see them.