Shine: Stepping Into The Role You Were Made ForSample

Allison Allen: Shine, Stepping into the Role You Were Made For Devotional Day 6

Your True Name

Scripture: John 1:12

Up until recently I had believed myself to be Rejected. That was the invisible nametag I wore through much of my life, even on Broadway and with Women of Faith.

But over time God showed me that no matter what old (or new) circumstance conspired to graffiti my heart with “Rejected,” the truth was that in Christ I was accepted. In fact, God had made it so. He had done it out of his own sufficiency. To his own glory. Through his own grace. There was actually nothing I could do about being Accepted. It just was, like the horizon. 

My job was simply to agree with grace. Daily. Hourly, if need be. I didn’t need to live a false character, with a false name. Once in prayer I asked Jesus why living out of a true name—one with evidence of his authorship—was so critical. As I prayed and pondered, he pressed this seed of truth into the soil of my heart: “Allison, you don’t call your kids by the wrong proper names, and I don’t call mine by the wrong spiritual ones.” 

I sat down with that for a long time. God doesn’t call us by the wrong names. He never entreats us to come to him with, “Hey, Stupid! Want to come on a kingdom exploit? Psst! Incapable! Let’s go tell the Good News to some folks who have never heard it. Let’s roll, Rejected!” 

It seems silly when you see it written out like that, but I know far too many of us live this way. If we wait for God to call us by our false character names, we will be waiting forever. As long as I truly believed I was Rejected, I would never hear him fully when he said, “Accepted One, would you follow me into this new thing I have for you? Capable One, would you dare to step where I step, go where I go? Will you allow me to shine through you, Light Bearer?”

Rejected would bow out of that invitation every time. But a daughter who knows her true name is Accepted? Now, that girl would step into the light from the shadows. 

Do you ever find yourself living out a false name? What do you believe God is truly calling you?