What's In A Name

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.” (Pr 22:1 AV)

 I have read this verse or heard it preaches hundreds of times, yet failed to see a nugget of truth which the Spirit illumined this wonderful morning.  Note specifically the relationship between the good name or favor with great riches, or silver and gold.  Note a choice must be made.  A choice for a good name or favor.  A good name is established by the choices we make.  Before great riches, silver, or gold, there is a choice that we are confronted with.  That is, how will the attaining of, or passion of, these things reflect on one’s reputation.  Wealth is not a bad thing.  How we attain them, what we do with them, and how they affect our walk with God can be.  But the possession of wealth is not evil.  Only the love of it.  Our sage is warning his children their reputation is worth more than anything they could ever possess.  Their reputation is the greatest of all riches.   But we want to key on the three-word phrase underlines above.  A reputation is something we choose.  It is not a result of good fortune.  A good name is something we choose to pursue and guard before we make any choices.  It is a purposeful goal that we strive towards.  Even in failure, overcoming a tarnish of our reputation can be attained if we fix what we have done.  But let us meditate on that three-word phrase, “to be chosen.”

I have never gone to detention.  I never did anything so wrong the teacher felt I had to stay after school and sit with others who also misbehaved.  There was a really bad movie that came out a few years after I graduated from High School.  The plot of the movie involved five students who were assigned to attend a Saturday detention.  The Teacher Moderator gave the assignment that each student was to write a one thousand word essay describing who they thought they were.  The essay is the focal point of the movie.  During the events of the nine-hour day, these five students continue their bad behavior.  Then, they dared to write the essay and conclude the teacher chose to see them as he did even though they were not exactly what they thought.  There was no true repentance.  There were no life-changing choices.  In fact, two of the five students had chosen to go down a road that would lead to worse choices.  The reason it was so well received was it reflected the attitude of teenagers.  The assumption their reputations were that of skewed observations of adults who didn’t understand them.  In reality, their reputations were a conglomerate of the choices they had made which landed them in detention class, to begin with.

There has been a dearth of this pursuit in the last generation or two.  There was a time when reputation meant everything.  There was a time when we worked hard so that others would trust us.  Our word meant something because it was based on past choices we had made.  Not so much anymore.  There are too many escape clauses for the poor choices of life.  There is no more striving for excellence.  Only that which will get us by.  We have become a society of perpetual failures who do not require of ourselves or others discipline to excel at life.  Perfection, or even striving for it, is no longer on the radar screen.  We are like a support group sitting around and spewing all of our failures to those who do the same with no real desire to overcome those failures.  We share a moment of mutual remorse over what we have done so that we can feel better about ourselves, or make others feel better about themselves, but we do not challenge one another to choose a good name.  Our view is if everyone is a failure, then what would it matter if I am one, too.  Solomon knows a good reputation will never hurt you but a bad one might.  A good name is something we choose to pursue.  It is a goal that defines the choices we make before we make them.  What others think does matter.  What God thinks matters more.