#hashtags

If I am going to pursue more to my “now” life, I have to start operating out of who and what God says I am, and that would be a daughter who is becoming all glorious within. Every other role or label should flow from that one position…from the single royal authority that is Christ. I will be more likely to approach my day with so much more of the fruits of the Spirit if I start off with that one name singing over me. I am a daughter of the King and then I am a mother. I am a daughter of the King and then I am a student, a teacher, a minister. I am as guilty as the next woman going in and out of Bible study as a worrier, a doubter, or with a long list of needs…nearly coming off as demands. Now there isn’t anything wrong with coming to God needing a word vomit or spill your broken heart. He is there for us, and He is not looking for perfection – just persistence. But I forget to come just as a daughter first and foremost. The purity of that humble, submitted, trusted position helps me hear and receive from the Father so much better. When I approach my day with “I am a daughter of the King” first in my mind, it frees me to be controlled by the Spirit. When negative labels threaten to overtake me, I can go back to who I am and whose I am and override any effort of the Enemy to say otherwise.When you take the risk of laying down your pearls and putting on a new strand of Authentic Pearls, you get a new name. All those false labels or limited roles you play don’t have the control over your heart that they used to. “Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes Ready to do what he said he’d do, prepared to complete what he promised.’ Zion will be called new names; Holy People, God-Redeemed, Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken” {Isaiah 62:9-11}Whether you are aware of it or not, a war is raging. The battle is on to steal the Bride, the princess, and carry her off to the dominion of darkness. To steal her away to the lost sea of bitterness, resentment, unbelief, and anything but a gloriously beautiful life. Life will happen. The dishes won’t get done, the laundry will pile up, the list of toddler demands will overwhelm you and lock up the gears of your heart: #mommyguiltLife will be too short. Friends will bury their children, and your heart will ache for the finality of earthly loss: #myfriendsdaughterdiedtooyoung.Cancer knows no age limit and spreads mercilessly across our generational landscape. Its label can sting: #nofastcure.Debt can threaten to swallow you alive and anchor you down until you die. Debt collectors become sharks in the water: #bankruptLove can grow cold when life’s demands steal your time. Life spreads thin. Hearts can ice over when not dealt with kindly. Romance can seem like a distant dream: #nomorecandlesandrosesforwornoutloversFor every false hash tag label we could shoot out over Twitter, God has a new name to shout over you.#theprincessisallgloriouswithin {Psalm 45:13}#youhaveabeautifulinheritance {Psalm 16:6}#youhavebeengivengraceupongrace {John 1:16}#youareforgiven {Ephesians 1:7}#theKingisatrustworthydefender {Psalm 28:8}God cares about your name. He cares that you understand the importance of your position as His daughter.The genealogies of the Bible can be a chronological beat down to read through. At times, you can feel you need a PhD in Hebrew languages to have any hope of pronouncing them properly. You end up just opting for a first initial naming, especially if you are called on to read a set of genealogy scriptures aloud in Bible study. At other times, you could be tempted to skip over that name mess entirely. Take a deeper look at those names; there might be some in the lineage of Christ you might just recognize.What about Ruth?Ruth had to overcome the negative connotation labeling her whole life. Hash tag it out:#looserfromnotownMoabShe was from a bad town that did so many things wrong the entire citizenry was labeled “bad news.” “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendents, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord” {Deuteronomy 23:3}Her only hope was to marry out of the mess of her people. She did that. “And they took for themselves Moabite women as wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they lived about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died” {Ruth 1:4-5}. Then he died. She was married ten years and then he died. She was alone and labeled again.She was a widow:#tooyoungtobeawidowIn the wake of so much grief, one would completely understand going back to what seemed comfortable, even if it was messed up. Her mother-in-law, Naomi, gave her the blessing to leave and go back to Moab and their gods almost out of pity. She wanted Ruth to be comfortable and maybe find rest. But Ruth refused to go back. “But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God’” {Ruth 1:16}. Ruth stayed to serve.Now she was a widow living with her mother-in-law:#helpingoutasadmotherinlaw #ihavenolifeRuth longed to be loved again. She still believed and lived beyond every label circumstance threw her way. She served, loved, and gave. And she found her kinsman redeemer. She found Boaz. “Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabites, the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased may not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birth place; you are witnesses today” {Ruth 4:10}#overcomingeverylabeltoleavealegacyRuth left a legacy. God cared about Ruth’s name. He cared about it so much that He decided to rewrite Levitical law and list her name in His genealogy list of ancestors: “and to Salmon was born Boaz by Rahab; and to Boaz was born Obed by Ruth….Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the time of Christ fourteen generations” {Matthew 1:17}.There were generations after generations of people before Jesus’ soft cries were heard in that Bethlehem stable, and yet Ruth’s name got a mention. Ruth’s name was remembered. Not Ruth the widow or Ruth the Moab. Not her label. What was remembered was her name, written out to signify her position in the family of God.Life will happen, and labels will shoot out and splatter all over you like an out of control paint gun if you are not clothed in the protective nature of your position in Christ. When the war starts, you don’t want to be a nameless citizen caught in the crossfire of a life of unredeemed labels. You want to be the intentionally protected, rightly labeled, and perfectly positioned daughter of the Most High King.