Rising Above the Labels That Bind You

Finding trust and faith building and payment for your kids is easy with the adventures in Odyssey club. It's an online community with almost every episode ever in the Focus on the Family clubhouse magazine subscription AI o'clock.org/radio and not find something very difficult situation and what I want to save my circumstance but not name when you hear is helping. That's Esther fleece Allen and you'll be hearing more from her today on Focus on the Family about putting off old labels that bind you. You and instead discovering your new name. In Christ, broadcaster Hostess focus president Dr. Jim Daly and I each of us can struggle from time to time to know who we are, what were about. I'm working on that with my team voyage and their identity in Christ. And it's great for parents to note, be diligent about talking especially to your teenagers about their identity in Christ, who they are because it's in other cultures is pulling at them constantly trying to create their own identity from a cultural standpoint… To me it's one of the core things I'm doing my parenting right now. Today were going to talk about something very interesting. Maybe some things that you've never thought about why God changes names. For example in Scripture.

Why did Saul become Paul and you know it's good to slow down and think of who we are in Christ. What's our identity.

What's our new name. Yeah. And as I said Esther fleece Allen has joined us. She's a writer, speaker, and founder and CEO of L and L consulting which helps develop strategies for nonprofit organizations, so she was finally on staff here at focus and it's fun to have her back to talk about her book your new name. Saying goodbye to the labels that limit Esther great to have you back. It's great to be back. Thank you for having fun and if you left what year did Julie focus think that in 2012 and 2012 okay for the listeners. Just think about this Esther you know is still this vibrant person, but you were single then you are doing kind of millennial outreach and all this cutting stuff.

Her focus and what's happening now for 10 years time even setting here when I was in college, but it's crazy.

I laughed Focus on the Family and that's when I met my drive and I have two children see a beautiful blaze when four months old to environments not getting a lot of sleep, but there's a whole lot 11 or if you get incoherent.

This is really interesting and I want to start with the difficult journey you've been on them.

In most people aren't going to remember when we talked about that many years ago on the broadcast. But let's go to the answer.

What does it mean to have a new name and why is it important to fill in a lot of the back**you and I think that this word Neil were familiar with the word new Christians in Scripture, we know that the New Testament, the new covenant God makes us a new creation that very few of us are talking at the new name that he gets that and I believe that every Christian will get a new name in Scripture we see in the Old Testament many times God would get a physical name change to somebody everything that also in the New Testament there is any physical name change how I've gone from Esther fleece to Esther Allen. Even if the physical name change.

There will be a spiritual change. There is an old and new in this word Neil defined in Scripture, and Mark found exactly like you were before.

Every single one of us who is in Christ, we have a testimony of newness. We have a new name that God wants to put on display, not old, broken, and that is so good again. I think for the listeners to be able to better connect with your story. Let's start there. Let's go back to childhood very broken home describe for sure. You know my father had a mental illness and would act out very inconsistently.

He was violent towards another. My mother years later ended up getting remarried that stepfather laughed after an affair that he had and then I found myself as a teenage girl really orphaned my mother left me at that time said there was a lot of brokenness I think every single one of us comes from a broken family in the sense that every family after the fall is a broken family. So every single one of us even if we have been raised with godly parents. There's going to be parts of our story and about our identity that we might have to wrestle laughed and Scripture gives us this permission to wrestle with God and so there were things I had to wrestle with. I was orphaned I was unwanted I was unloved and don't labels carried with me into my 20s.

Even in my 30s and I just thought maybe they're always good to be with me.

Maybe I will always be that overcome her, but I was the orphan girl overcome her on the achiever that I was unwanted when I was studying the new names in Scripture. I realized that the enemy wants us to stay stuck in old labels, but that God names us for our future.

God wants to move us forward. And so while those things happen to ask people might've mislabeled us, we maybe have mislabeled ourselves by our circumstances. That is the new name that God has for us and that is what God wants us to walk out of writing to you. This is very tender again as a teenager it was falling in on you release feelings of abandonment and again I can so relate to that, but you did find yourself depressed and speak to that dark time in your life when you even contemplate suicide.

Like I mean I think a lot of young people and their family leaves or dies or they go through a tragedy.

Unfortunately, one of the world's coping mechanisms as well. This is just too difficult. And if you end things your pain lined and exit the big lie that the enemy and says to people and not just teenagers seen Alex everyone and on. So what was interesting is that I two decades after my father had left. I was actually working for focus at the time my biological father began stalking me and I was devastated. I thought I had just overcome this hard story and that that was part of my past that was supposed to stay in the past and I didn't know how to deal with it here and now you know. Here I am a twentysomething young adult writing in my career I love my work. I love my friends and starting my church and I didn't know what to deal when my abuser came back and I just have to share that suicidal thoughts did come back and it wasn't that I wanted to die. It was that I wanted my pain and that's true for so many teenagers and 27 and one Jim I have to share that I went to very difficult years of stocking. I was so emotionally and spiritually drained. I stepped away from work for years because I needed to prioritize emotional health. It was it was devastating and I got married, the Lord is bringing new seasons. To me, and my father died in our honeymoon site is experiencing this love of all lots. I've never felt the love like I had experience or my husband.

It was life-changing it was transformative. It is still one of the greatest gifts that God has given me is marriage but tend to experience my father's death on our honeymoon. How was I supposed to deal with that I went to the Scriptures and I see again and again where people say save me God save me God save me God.

I thought save me prayer was just a one and done prayer I thought were supposed to pray to be saved and then once were saved were God's children and the were just supposed to pick ourselves up and move forward. That is, your sanctification eggs that were just posted now be live righteously and be sanctified by God and the Holy Spirit works in what I was missing is the prayers that are woven throughout Scripture from David from God's mighty people from women who have experienced infertility. There saying God save me God rescue me. God help me, and I realize that in my moment of distress in my Mona despair. I didn't need to renew myself. I did need to choose to end things I didn't have to take things in my own hands. I needed to again say God save me God I need you and don't let me stay stuck in the circumstance because the circumstance is more difficult than I can handle the difficulty again no matter what age you are when you're facing that kind of Valley in your life and people listening or facing something right. Most people many people, especially given the environment wherein it may be unemployment it could be no wayward teenager. Whatever might be and this is the toughest question that I get asked notice you know in that context. When your team when you're twentysomething trying to get oxygen right even as a believer just trying to breeze because all this was crushing in on you, even in your happiest week your honeymoon you I know you look forward to that time. You didn't even know who that man would be there.

The problem that major cloud came over you again on your honeymoon.

It's terrible, but the right questions how to God begin to show you his love through other people, especially outside your family. Obviously you were getting it from your family. So it's amazing to that God never renames us out of our send God never renames us out of our shame out of our most embarrassing moments out of our failures the way that God names that is out of his love for us and so it is profound and deep love that God has for his children and those who are not even yet his children that he wants to have them become his children that he gives us a new name and so that's again where I had to say to God, who am I to you and is this the end of my story and it wasn't. And that's what I want to say to the listener is that if you are facing difficulty in your marriage.

If you have lost your job if you are struggling in your relationship with your teenagers.

This is not the end of your story might be a very painful season. This might be part of walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but there is a walking through that needs to take place. There will be another side Casserly Giglio says that if it is not good yet God is not done and that's outside of the listeners I needed help from other people that asked her this is difficult Esther, this is challenging. This is hard. I'm sorry that you're having a list of this grief again, but this is not the end of your story and that's the hope that our new names give us let's go to the real cultural one. You have a wonderful story about a woman who experienced an abortion as a teenager. That's can apply to millions of people. We know that almost 60 million abortions have occurred. Maybe over that number now so that that's affecting a lot of people. What was that story. What was she hearing as a teenager twentysomething and how did she fight through that, you know, there are so many women who had a testimony of having an abortion and then coming to Christ realizing what they did was wrong and repenting and I'm so grateful that there is such a grief that a woman has to go through if she's made that decision on – to be celebrated if she realizes she's forgiven and she accepts Christ because Christ went to the cross to forgive her, but I want to say that there is a step two and that she needs a new name. You know this woman came up to me after speaking and said I believe my name is murderer. I took the life of my child. I realize what a dad and I live.

I did this every day that this is my name my name is murderer and I said are you a Christian and she said yes and I said have you asked God for forgiveness and she said yes and he said that he has a new name for you. Let's ask them how he sees you and in that moment. We prayed and she lifted her head up and she said I'm clean. He says I'm clean and she wept and she wept and shipshape. She actually has kids at home and she said she was parenting out of a place of anger because she had such guilt for this decision that she had made 20 years ago and said God had a new name for her, and we know that God would have a name for that precious child as well and so I think that's where the freedom comes as we don't have to continue to lead out of the label out of our old story. If we were unwanted or unloved, but doesn't have to define us moving forward that there is that part two for all of us that we don't stay stuck in the Senate we've committed or the sin that's been done – there is a new name and a new birth that God wants to do and our life's and the question is for those listening obviously is the process it's hard it's like you hit the wall and bounce back so you keep hearing the same label and you don't accept what God is feeling toward you his love endless love for you. How do you break through the wall. What was your own experience that way. This is a constant process and I think every single one of us is going to go through a different word have a different story because God's creative and so personal, so he knows how to speak directly to us and now we need to be reminded again and again. I think I go back to the story of Jacob being renamed Israel in the Scriptures you know Jacob's name there's some debate about this, but one of the meanings could be deceiver and Jacob kind of lived in that way, and as he was wrestling with God. He was wrestling overnight.

Many of us have had done that, we had a dark night in the soul. We've wrestled with God through the night. God renames Jacob to Israel. So it's not like Jacob then repents it's not when Jacob just fully turned his life around. When Jacob starts listening to Christian music in the middle of the rifling God says I'm naming you Israel because of a future free and there's a meaning behind so I think that's what we need to have a little bit of space in the body of Christ is at work and have different wrestling stories. For me it was over years that I needed Christian families to show me the love of God, and they were so faithful to hang in there with me and to believe that God was not done in my story.

Every single one of us will have a story of overcoming Scripture rarely talks about suffering without also addressing how God wants us to be over comers. Esther, you have the little bit of the book there that talks about earning the label learning.

I think it's important that we talk about the people can strive what is a healthy way of trying to please God, so that it's not as if that if I do this for then you will bless me then you call me by something good that speak to that issue. Most of us want an A+ B equals C Christianity, you know, even as I was studying this concept for the buck I wanted what the formula should be, because I wanted to be a good question into it and that that's just where the relationship with God steps into play, and I think again many of us as we been walking with Christ for years we get into this on flow that we think our actions are in his favor, but the way that God renames people the way that God means and again is sometimes right in the middle of the wrestler, sometimes right in the middle of their struggle and we don't have to just tidy up our lives to go to God. God wants to meet Scott pursue his eyes and God has new names for us in whatever season were in and those names are going to help us move forward you the book of Psalms.

It says in Psalm 40 verse three that I put the new song in our heart and hymn of praise and that's the way that people can see your testimony when they see this new song that was birthed in you. But if we skip over that that the Meyer came for the mock destruction.

The devastation that was first, and most of us are going to find ourselves in a very difficult situation and what I want to Sadie is that God is not going to define you out of that circumstance, but God has a new name and when you hear your new name. It can help you move forward Esther were coming into the end here, but I do want to talk about you meeting Joe, your husband because I'm sure that had both difficulty as well as blessing and if you can speak to the Chevy. We left people hanging there with your honeymoon and what happened with your father. How did you and Joel in the context of marriage.

How is that been strengthening for what's interesting that God would give me a physical name change. In the midst of studying a spiritual name change and you know in this season of stepping away from work. I thought it would maybe be a couple weeks and that in a couple years on and I decided to take a season to study at Oxford University because you know I'll connect with the Lord through stealing a meth dealer and I just wasn't feeling up for years. I just I was actually feeling like an abandoned daughter again and before I went over to Oxford on just in my own time with God. I felt like he was saying. Esther you are a bride and I didn't understand why he was speaking to me, but it was important that I listen and hear. You are bright you are my bride and I felt the Lord say you are going to be a good bride because you already aren't that bright and that's what was life changing for me. Maybe I can be a good bride here physically because I cared to be a good bride to Christ and that's what happens when we have the spiritual name change with God.

We believe that differently and we can apply in the physical and so I went over to Oxford University and my spiritual dad, Jason Elam, who was also there studying within class that this man named Jill Allen and Jason knew me enough to not say it was a set up answer now that I was at dinner with you on to our family to me and this man Jill Allen came up behind my life was changed and you know he began pursuing me in a beautiful way. He asked Jason for permission as he got to know each other. He asked permission to date me on, which meant that time because I was going to this turmoil with my biological family and to perceive my heart beautifully on but I did the hard work with God before he came. I think a lot of us we think circumstances are what's going to change our story.

But God invites us to transforming work with him and with the body of Christ.

And so I want to say I did the hard work and counseling.

I did the hard work with these Christian families who took me in and re-parented me and I just hung in there with God, and I believed I believed him when he said I'm a good bride and it allowed me the opportunity to be pursued to then become a physical pride. Yeah, I'm sure Joel played a fantastic role is so reminds me of who I am, he still remains a Jew. Imagine if we just got married and on our wedding day. He said I love you and he never said it again. You know some of us think were just supposed to get through this Christian life without hearing God say I love you. We need to hear it again and again that he left Esther. Fear can often group people obviously even people that are moving generally in the right direction. We might call the speedbump a wall. Everyone describe it, but oftentimes that can be wrapped around fear.

That was the fear of becoming a mom to move into the briefly but when you're married, that's great that step, you are trusting God for that and then okay now what about children 30s that children were a blessing and it works at Focus on the Family.

We work with children. I'd always had children around me, but I just was so afraid. I've continuing a cycle of brokenness.

I was just so afraid. What if I end up doing to my kids what was done to me or you know I just was paralyzed in many areas of fear and there was a morning that I heard my husband and he was having his morning coffee time he loves coffee and he loves just having quiet time in the morning he was in the other room and and he started praying for our family and that God would bless us with children and he was praying for me and I realize how I am the person to answer that prayer. And you know in Scripture we see Abraham and Sarah and we see that Sarah took that into her own hands, and I didn't want to take my story and my own hands anymore. I didn't want to write my own script and I realized while I am the woman that God is chose to answer my husband's prayers and it was shortly after that, we find that we are pregnant and think I do have like 910 months to get ready and it was a precious time with realizing that one of the new names God wanted to give me is the name on and I love being a mom is not my soul identity, but it is one of the greatest gifts that God has given me is one of the greatest names that God has given me and healing and forgiveness even towards my biological family. Surprisingly, have come through my children and so if God wants to give us new seasons gifts of maybe marriage gifts of maybe children may be to different career paths for us as we walk out in faith on but sometimes it requires a lament first and realizing what is the fear. What is the label that's holding me back, and how might God want to move me forward yesterday you mentioned forgiveness.

How do you forgive someone who has hurt you so deeply like your dad did numbing for those listening.

It might be another relative or friend, but how do you forgive. Yeah, I read every single book.

There was of how to forget, and I never was able to fully forgive and I mean I listen to every sermon possible and it just never came and I thought there's something wrong with me that I'm not able to forgive fully and that the reality is I was minimizing my pain. Do a three I was saying wasn't that you know it could have been worse and we all have our own, and healthy coping mechanisms that when I was minimizing my pain did three I was forgetting at three and so it wasn't until I really lamented God this stinks. This is so hard, how come he is dying on my honeymoon. Like how did you let this happen how Mrs. to handle this like Handel's funeral all these questions all these lament when that grief came out it was an opportunity for me to fully forget and to heal and Jim as I was on that process.

It was not an overnight thing. Forgiveness did not happen overnight to some people well and I bless you for that.

But for me it was a continual year after year process of choosing to forgive my offenders choosing to forgive my biological father choosing to forgive my mother and it was when my first son was born and I was changing his diaper was two months old I started singing the apostles Creed over him was like not even sure where I knew this song from and I sat down and I was so grateful to be the mother of this beautiful boy and I realize that my biological father had taught me that create and I was able to forgive him and all those labels that my father didn't deserve. He was absent.

He was abusive. He hurt me all those labels that he deserved. I was able to redeem him.

I was able to say he tried, he did love me he was sick and he wasn't well but I don't have to believe him to be that monster anymore. I can say that I'm grateful. He taught me the apostles Creed that I can teach to my son now and so the healing doesn't come overnight our new names don't come overnight, but it's so worth it. They do come, and there is a load that's lifted when were able to rename our thunders so well said. I'm impressed you have done a lot of growing in the Lord's work in your life in such a marvelous way. Folks you've heard it, I'll tell you what only get this in your hands because of so much content we did get to know so much more that Esther Schoen and her great book your new name. And if you can make a gift of any amount. I will send it is our way of saying thank you you can afford it will get it in your hands is call Islam's pray with you and that will trust others will take care of the cost of it's one of those tools that you need in your toolbox to draw you closer to God and the word and encourage you to give us a call and ask for that book. Our number is 800 the letter a in the word family and her website is listed in the episode notes and while you're there online.

Be sure to look for our little online booklet called coming home that will introduce you to what it means to follow Jesus to know him to be freed from a life of sin and to be able to enter into a relationship with God and along the way here. We've talked about a number of pretty sensitive topics.

And if you're in a place of brokenness and you're hurting give us a call. I will walk through some of the steps of following Christ, and will pray with you if you'd like we can even schedule an appointment with one of her caring Christian counselors are number again is 800 K and the word family will join us next time. So we take a wonderful life with you and Tim Hawkins last year for Christmas I got the laziest gift for my kids.

They got the alarm clock time on the ceiling as you all know is to go to Jim Daly in the entire team.

Thanks for joining us focus on family and Joan Fuller inviting you back your family thrive in Christ life was fragile in the old West trust in God reliance on prayer and the level family were necessities for a perilous journey and that still true today or just Morgan wisely captures these timeless themes in his new special edition sign giclée from Focus on the Family.

Morgan calls it a prayer for new life reminder of the sanctity of life in the harsh environments of this world will find a special place in your home for limited time you can get this special edition print focusonthefamily.com/prayer for life