My name is often misspelled. The day of my college graduation, I opened my diploma to see Meridith. Disappointing for sure, especially since it had never been misspelled on any other college documents, but when I sent it back for a replacement, it came back with the same mistake! It’s happened so often that I have actually come to expect it at places like Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks where they print your name on the sticky ticket they attach to your bag or coffee. One time I gave the barista a different name altogether, but now I find it funny.
In Isaiah 44 God rebukes those who take a block of wood, carve an idol out of it and bow down to it. We would never do that, right? But there are many kinds of idols. Tim Keller defined an idol as “anything that absorbs more of our attention and imagination than God.”
Idolatry is one of the main reasons I have, for the most part, gotten off social media. I used to have a podcast. I enjoyed the process of writing and recording each episode. But when you create content online, there is another thing that comes with it – growing an audience. You make a podcast so that people will listen. But how can people listen if they don’t know about your podcast? You have to spread the word through social media. So I created an Instagram account for the podcast, requiring me to spend even more time creating content that would build an audience. But in the midst of all that I realized I was wading into some dangerous spiritual waters. The promoting of the podcast started getting entangled with the promoting of myself. I found myself constantly checking stats to see how many had listened, commented or liked. Pretty soon the creation of content got wrapped up in the temptations of idolatry.
Is it even possible to create content online and promote it without falling into the idolatry of self where your identity becomes a brand and you’re constantly curating your own reputation, making sure your name is noticed? How does a Christian blog, podcast, YouTube without losing their soul? The idolatry of self has always been a temptation for the essence of sin is to curve inward on yourself. But in our age of the expressive individual when the temptations are embedded in the technology we use every day, how freeing would it be to look away from yourself and focus on the name above all names?
My reputation has often been too important to me, something I have jealously but secretly guarded even without me realizing it. But lately I’ve been realizing how little my name and reputation matters. The truth is that my name will be forgotten in a couple generations but his name endures forever. That future and certain anonymity (at least among men) should not lead me to despair though, for, if I am in Christ, then I have taken on a new identity and bear his name. I am no longer just Meredith, or Meridith or any other way you want to misspell it! I am Meredith-in-Christ, Christ-in-Meredith, a new creation who is not losing her own personality and uniqueness but one who has been grafted into another, buried and raised with Christ.
Identity and names are a theme that runs through Revelation. In the letters to the seven churches, Jesus commends those who bear up under persecution for his name’s sake (2:3). They hold fast his name, not denying the faith (2:13). They may be weak but they keep his word and do not deny his name (3:8). As a reward, those who endure to the end will be given a white stone with a new name written on it (2:17). Jesus knows their names and they will never be blotted out of the book of life because he will confess their name before the Father (3:4-5). Even more precious, the name of God will be written on them: “The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.” (3:12)
How silly and shortsighted is it for me to worry about my own name and my own reputation when my whole life is bound up in Christ! Yes, my name will be forgotten by men, but not by the Lord. He knows my name, it is written in his book. And I will bear his name forever in the New Jerusalem.
“They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” Revelation 22:4
Women Studying the Word 