The Defense of a Good Reputation…a Good Name

                                                             

                                                   “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,                                                     

                                                                     There’s just something about that name.

Master, Savior, Jesus…

like the fragrance after the rain.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…

let all heaven and earth proclaim.

Kings and kingdoms

will all pass away,

But there’s just something
about that name.”

Beautiful lyrics about a beautiful Name…a powerful Name…a Name that has been lifted up and glorified for centuries, and will forevermore be the Name above all Names.

I find names to be extremely significant…specifically the meaning behind them and the reputations they hold. This subject’s come up in our family recently. I suppose we should’ve done more teaching on the matter prior to an incident occurring, but never the less, we’re working on it now.

The event was an accusation, one that’s not proven true, one that hurts and is feasible only because of a scarred reputation. It was directed toward one of my sons and it’s not the first time for this charge. However, the charge has always been by the same person and with no witnesses. Three times, this child’s been accused by the same person for an act he claims he didn’t do. Other than the fact that this young man has been caught lying about minor offenses in the past and caught in the act of some not-so-minor offenses, there’s nothing to indicate that he’s guilty of this one. In fact, his behavior around this one child and other children, as well as the behavior of the accuser around my son, leads us to believe that these accusations are false. So, basically his past lies make him untrustworthy, but his behavior around others don’t line up with the claim. What’s a parent to do?

The first two times, we handled the children separately and I witnessed my son, in the safety of his home, in the safe of presence of his mother, passionately deny his guilt, but yet was willing to accept that its one person’s word against another’s, and with two different stories, we can’t know for sure the truth. However, the third time came up and the parents decided to confront the children together with all four adults present. Although my son still denied his guilt, it was not with the same passion as previous denials.

His blasé response led me to believe that one of two things was happening here. Either he really is guilty and has been with each incident, or he felt backed into a corner and defeated thinking that after an already scarred reputation from being caught in other offenses, there’s no way he could convince anyone of his innocence, so why even try.

I myself have been in a situation where, regardless of my innocence, the evidence was stacked against me, so I gave up the fight. In fact, not too long ago, my daughter also found herself in a similar situation which cost her job and her reputation. And so my heart began to break as I considered a pattern in the Spruiell family.

I prayed over this and stayed up at night thinking about it. I’m not the kind of mother who naively believes her children would never do anything wrong. On the contrary, I’m the first one to believe that they’re capable of all sorts of sin. After all, why would I believe that they’re any different than myself, and I know I’ve done some pretty bad things, so my mind usually jumps to “guilty until proven innocent.”

The truth is, I’ve felt conviction many times by the Holy Spirit for this attitude, but when that comes up, I usually justify my thought process by stating what I’ve just said, that no one can call me a naïve mother. But this time, the conviction broke through my stubbornness and I knew that my son needed to hear that I believed him, and that his mother knew that he was a better person than that. I wanted him to know that I was on his side. Our conversation brought his passion back. I saw his frustration and anger that we were revisiting the issue and he tearfully proclaimed his innocence. That’s when the topic of our conversation changed to the reputation that his name holds.

My son knows of his own sin nature. He knows the areas where he struggles in temptation. He knows that he is known as the assertive, risk taker whose first inclination is to lie when he gets caught. He knows how, over the years, his parents have contended with his strong-willed nature, creatively and consistently disciplining him, and he knows how we’ve invested countless hours training him in what’s right and wrong. We’ve even discussed reputation in the past, but this is the first time he’d suffered the consequences of a bad rep.

So this time, I associated a reputation with a name…the family name of his earthly father, the family name of my earthly father (his first name is my maiden name), and the family name of his heavenly Father. I explained to him that his first and last name was given to him at birth and he should wear them respectfully and not give them a bad reputation with persistent bad behavior. My husband and I asked him what he wanted others to think about when they heard his name, when they heard the name Spruiell. We asked this question to all of our boys and received a variety of good answers. But I also explained to my son, that if he wants to carry the name of Christ, if he wants to carry the name, Christian, he can’t give it to himself. It has to be given to him by others. It’s based on how he lives his life and how he’s seen by the world. He can call himself a believer in Christ, a new creation in Christ, but to be called a Christian, or Christ-like, he has to allow others to give him that name and it will hang on his reputation.

Now of course, I know that we cannot successfully change ourselves unaided, the Holy Spirit must do the work in us, but there still has to be a will in us to change. So, time will tell if the conversations we’ve had with our son has given him the will to change, but I do think that he realizes more now than ever before that our actions affect many parts of our lives including the name we carry.

Now, I know that our Lord was falsely accused and it was in spite of His righteous living, and if we ever have to face that kind of persecution, I pray that we have the strength to endure. In the meantime, there’s no reason for our behavior to fuel a false accusation. I’m sure that the rhetoric of the importance of our name will come up more often in our household. Although we all call ourselves believers in Christ, I pray that others will call us Christians and our Christian behavior will be our defense in times of need.

Amie N Spruiell 1/14/2011