You are named by your parents, then you are named by God. Until you discover the secret name he's given you, your story won't make sense to you and your wounds will haunt you.
He gives us our new names so that we may be healed.
When I heard my new name, it felt like I was making it up. The skeptic would say that because I wanted to hear it, I fabricated it in order to make myself feel better. That certainly could happen -- if you leave God out of my story.
It happened when I was watching Tolkein's Lord of the Rings - the Return of the King for a second time. God whispered something like, "You have a strength like Aragorn's." Aragorn is the warrior-wanderer who would one day assume the throne as the true heir to the kingdom. (Again, all this will sound self-serving unless we understand what God is up to.) By the way, God renamed people all the time in Scripture: 'Abram' to 'Abraham,' 'Saul' to 'Paul,' 'Simon' to 'Peter.' He hasn't stopped renaming people.
Why call me, 'Aragorn?" I'd heard God whisper that name to me before. The answer is that all men doubt their strength. But in my case, there was more: I had been a young pastor who challenged the unquestioned authority of those in positions of power. I stepped out of my "proper role" to dispute the status quo. Older and more tenured men in leadership saw it as insubordination and threat. I was tossed out on my ear and kicked out of the pastorate.
Congregation members who knew what was really happening voluntarily wrote letters on my behalf to the district leadership and to the bishop. They fell on deaf ears. The system wasn't designed to hear opinions other than its own.
Here's the parallel: Aragorn faced a similar challenge with established leadership. You may remember the scene in which King Theodin has just been released from the grasp of Worm Tongue's poisonous lying. Under this spell of deception, Theodin had no mind of his own. He was easily deceived. The light in his eyes had gone out, his skin pasty and prematurely aged. Then Gandalf banishes Worm Tongue and his foul counsel from the great hall, and King Theodin becomes himself again.
But Theodin is reluctant to expose his people to war. The younger, inexperienced Aragorn challenges him: "Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not." Theodin is taken aback by what he thinks is Aragorn's brash arrogance -- but the would-be heir to the throne is simply speaking what needed to be said. And Aragorn's unwelcomed counsel ended up moving the elder King to rescue his people from a dark army approaching their doorstep.
"Jim. You have a strength like Aragorn."
So my wounds began to heal as God spoke the name meant for me: the pain of rejection (being thrown out of 'ministry'), as well as the doubting: "Was I justified in what I did? Was I the one who was wrong?" And through the new name I hear, "No Jim. That was your strength coming through. It cost you, but they don't write your story. I do."
Over the last 6 years, on several occassions, God continues unwrapping more layers of meaning to "Aragorn." And so the healing continues.
Have you begun to hear your secret name?