So last week we spent our week in Asheville, North Carolina at a YWAM East Coast Conference. There were eight different YWAM bases represented, from New York all the way down to Miami. I believe there were about 400 hundred kids, staff and school leaders. Our days were jammed pack with teachings, workshops, small group, one on ones, and more teachings. We had a few great speakers lined up for the week, Trent Sheppard and Alejandro Rodriguez.
During one of the sessions Trent talked about laying down something in our lives that was keeping us from God, and to just bring it up to the front and laying down just to signify you were going to give it up. It didn't necessarily have to be something that represented it exactly just something that you had with you. So most people laid down some sort of clothing, or a pen, or their shoes or something, but as I walked up there I laid down my name tag. Obviously your name tag has your name on it so I was laying down my name. And I didn't think about the significance of laying down my name til the next day. The next afternoon session Alejandro spoke about the huge importance in Biblical times about passing on your story or your legacy, and how they did that was by naming there children after their fathers. He discussed how Zaccariah couldn't have kids because Elizabeth was barren, and that his name would end there. But that it was so important for him to have a boy to pass on his name and story. And when the angel of the Lord told him that he would have a kid, and would have to name him John, he thought again that his name and story would die. But in the end he layed down his own story and his own name for the glory of God, and His bigger story. So it was here that I tied in all that had been happening the past two days.
Throughout my life I have been trying to get my name to be remembered to leave a story or a legacy, so down the road my grandchildren would know their grandma was someone in the world. But it was here that I layed down my own story and my own name, for God's bigger story. Here's the kicker though, even though you may think that Zaccariah gave up his name and story, your wrong!!!! God used it in his bigger story, Zaccariah's name and story have lived on for two thousand years!!! I hope maybe one day, my story will help in God's bigger story.
