What's in a Name?

So last year about this time I decided that I was going to make it my goal to read through the bible every year. I've done that before but I wanted to commit to doing it every year. I don't tell you this as though that somehow that should make me more spiritual in your eyes, or that there's anything particularly magical about reading the whole bible as opposed to reading it in pieces. But one thing I learned last year as I read through is that when taken as a whole the bible tells a story, and it's a completely cohesive unified story even though it is actually 66 individually books written by many different authors over thousands of years.

So anyway, this year I decided that as I started reading I was going to pay particular attention to the individual people and possibly focus on some of the not so popular folks. It has helped that we're also studying some of the early bible patriarchs in our Sunday school class. As I read through the early chapters of Genesis I was paying particular attention to the names given to these people and what the bible says about their meanings.

Adah - ornament
Enosh - mortal
Irad - fugitive
Jabal - stream
Japheth - spreading out
Mahalalel - praise of God
Methushael - man who is of God

In each case the name given to the person ended up personifying their life in a major way. So I'm wondering; their parents could not have possibly known what these people would grow up to be like. Obviously God played a hand in their lives, and right from the beginning, right down to what their name was.

I love it when the bible shows me that God is involved in our lives in the most intimate ways. But that intimacy may look a bit different than I want it to. I want to think about God as though we was like my wife sitting across the room who's bound to listen to my complaining and whining, or bad attitude, and always be patient and loving in response. The reality I think, is that God has a very detailed plan; His plan is about Him not us, but we get to be involved. Because we're involved God weaves himself into the intimate details of our lives and as a result, our lives become part of the story He's telling the world. His story. I want to be able to say God, this story isn't going so good, can you please change this chapter?. But God is saying, Ed, you were created to be in this chapter, connect to Me and find out why.

So all this got me thinking about my name, Edward. All the references I could find say my name means wealthy guardian. I guess I could think of worse things to be named, but what I really want to know is if God was going to name me, what would He call me? Would he call me, "TV watcher", or how about "the great sitting wonder"? I think the name Methushael would be a pretty good one. It might not get allot of attention from the ladies, but I think if God saw me as "one who is of God" I think I would pretty happy about that.

What do you think God would call you?