What's in a Name?

Here in Thailand...one of the phrases I have come to memorize, is the phrase of asking someones name.  It is somewhat easy and most always they understand what you are saying, even though I am messing up the tonal part of the language. But when working with kids or even trying to make friends with the girls in the bars.....asking what their name is......is usually how I break the ice of cultural differences. Then I started thinking what is someones name? It's not who they are...but it identifies them as someone beyond just the faces and numbers. I started to think of the women we encounter daily who never get their name spoken. Who sometimes take on different names just for the night. Names although it might not seem like a big deal becomes a sense of identity with them being an actual human being with life and love flowing through them. 

We drove by a building near Bangla Road, which our contact described as being probably the darkest part of Patong. This building from the outside looked like any other building, it had an office building feel to it. There were a lot of windows, three or four stories high, but it was what was happening on the inside that made it so dark. This was the center ring, you could say for the trafficking business. Girls came through this building before being bought off by other brothels. Girls in this building were behind glass windows, with numbers instead of names. Every ounce of identity was taken from them....and they become just another number. So when driving past this building I was reminded how much a name can be significant. As we walk the streets at night asking for their names, it almost puts off a sense of caring towards them. It lets them know that we care beyond the drink they will give us. We care about their soul, and we have a desire for them to have more in life than one that consists from night to night. I was reading in Isaiah where God summons Israel by name. It says this several times, and it just connected everything together..and its this......The God of the Universe passionately longs for us, and He summons us by name. The God who opens the skies for rain....knows your name! And just like asking and knowing those girl's names at the bar is an important tool in our ministry......our God does the same with us. You are not just a number to Him, He knows you. He is not a distant God waiting for you to mess up....you are so much more to Him. I see these women with empty eyes searching for someone or something to fill that void. I feel as Christians we forget who we serve. We have forgotten we serve a Great God who knows us by name.