Making a Name for Yourself

Making a name for yourself, is this not all about what our society tells us to do? As a child, you are encouraged to study hard and be competitive. You hear words such: "why can't you do like your other friends?" It is more about becoming like someone else and making a name for yourself.

This idea of making a name for yourself is as old as our human nature. If you read Genesis 11, you will find a community that wanted also to make a name for themselves. They decided to build a city, a tower, which could reach the heavens. The idea did not, however, please God who decided to come down. God shut down this human project and dream. Remember that these people who were speaking one language. But, God confused their language so that they could not understand each other anymore.

Two things we see here, and which will never please our Maker. When you make a name for yourself, you become self centered and God has therefore no place in your life. Or God is pushed to the peripheries of who you are.

The other thing is that who do you want to give glory to for your accomplishments in life? Is it because of the talents or gifts you have that you are who you are? Or Is it all about the One who invested all these things in you? When one's focus is to make a name for themselves, they spend more time thinking about creation instead of the Creator.Is this what you do?


How about making a name for God instead of making one for yourself? How about decreasing so that Christ increases in you? When you do this, God will always be pleased. Your memories will go from one generation to another.You will be like the Samaritan woman (John 3) or this donkey on which Jesus rode on at his triumphal entry to Jerusalem (Matthew 21). The church has been talking about the woman and the donkey for more than 2,000 years. They made a name for the Lord, and the world and church talk about them for generations. That's how you may also be remembered if you make a name for God instead of making one for yourself.

Be blessed and always of good courage!

Emmanuel