My Name is Obadiah

This was posted on my Facebook page on January 19th, 2017.

I want to talk to you about my childhood and how God spoke to me about changing my name. I was an awkward, timid, worrisome little boy for a good chunk of my life. I felt different than most of my peers and I loathed that feeling. As a boy all I wished to do was to feel included, and to fit in. Regardless of how hard I tried I always felt like an outsider. I saw myself in the shadow of my father, my brother, and any figure I looked up to. It caused me to grow into that timid little boy I was, and soon I trained myself to believe the lies I told myself. “You’re so stupid, you’re too skinny, why can’t you do anything right?” were daily thoughts that ran through my head and frankly, I didn’t need much convincing. I began to recite those words religiously, which caused me to become a people pleaser at a very young age. My whole life was consumed with working for the approval of others. I created a cycle that had me attempting to live up to exceptions that were never achievable, which only deepened the lies I believed about myself. These unhealthy thoughts became the theme song to my life, and played loud and clear anytime I walked in the school’s doors, sat at the Thanksgiving table, or tried to speak in front of a group of people. These thoughts haunted my childhood like a ghost, and I couldn’t get away from them.

I’ve grown up since then, and even though I am a twenty-two-year-old man, that awkward, timid, worrisome little boy still lives quietly inside of me. Often that version of myself is the one running the show, bringing those false truths to the surface on a daily basis. Over time and with much help from the Lord, I have become aware of this specific fault of mine, but certainty not freed from it. My time in Uganda has been filled with many hours of prayer, meditation, and contemplation upon and to God, how He sees me, and my value as a child of God. In those times with God He has spoken to me about how I see myself and has helped me identify where I place my value. In a very painful yet necessary way God has shown me that I am placing my value in something other than the truth, the truth being that I am made in the image of God. I am still learning and growing to accept how God sees me, for my own benefit. To some of you it might sound funny to say that it is difficult to believe “God’s truth”, but when you have exclusively believed negative thoughts about yourself for the vast majority of your life, change doesn’t come easy. The Lord has been speaking to me about rooting myself in Him and how He sees me. Not in what people say about me, not in what I used to be, and especially not in what I wish I could be.

More specifically as I have been praying, God has spoken to me about my name, Brian. There is nothing wrong with the name Brian, and frankly I don’t really have any problem with it. Neither does God, for that matter. When my mother picked my name she chose it simply because she thought it was a nice name. It comes from a Celtic word meaning “high” or “noble” which sounds nice enough to me, but I felt as if God wanted me to make a permanent change to my name. The negative words I spoke over my life for such a long time were rooted so deeply that they felt like part of my DNA. God doesn’t want me to change my name because Brian is bad name to have; He wants me to change it because of how deeply I still believe those childhood lies. I guess you could call this name change a re-boot of sorts, a way to completely start over. I thought of the times in scripture where God changed someone’s name like Saul to Paul or Abram to Abraham, and with his name change came an identity change. I believe while I have been in South Africa and Uganda, God has said I need this name change so I can have a complete identity change. As I have been praying and asking God what I should change my name to, and the Lord gave me the name Obadiah.

Obadiah Is a Hebrew name meaning “servant of God.” There have been a handful of Obadiah’s throughout scripture, but the most well-known would be the author of the smallest book in the Old Testament, Obadiah. My name change isn’t really related to the author or the book of Obadiah, but it is related to the prophetic nature of the author. For me the decision to change my name to Obadiah is a prophetic statement of sorts, declaring my new identity as a servant, and a child of God. Every time I introduce myself I will be reminded of what my name means, as well as the prophetic nature of the change. The times when God changed names in scripture.

I know for some of you changing my name from Brian to Obadiah could seem a bit dramatic or strange, but for my own growth and benefit it is something I feel I need to do. For the people who have known me for a long time I do not expect you to start calling me Obadiah all of a sudden. I won’t be offended if you call me Brian, but from now on I will be introducing myself as Obadiah with the hope that my friends and family will follow. When I change my name legally I will be adding Obadiah, and making my full name Obadiah Brian James Emery. I will not change my name legally until 2019 because that is when my visa to South Africa ends, which will make my life easier as I live abroad.

This change is going to be a significant one, and I believe my changing of names will help me see myself in a different way. Hopefully, the way God sees me. So at the start of this year, 2017, I started introducing myself by my new name. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and being a part of my journey.