'Give a Dog a Good Name' BlogSpot by Brian Garrod

Sunday 2 June 2013

As many of you know, we have heard the patter of tiny feet in our family recently. Four feet and a waggly tail to be precise – a puppy. We decided to call him Idris – a solid, old-fashioned, distinctly Welsh name. If you like this name, good on you for having excellent taste. If you don’t, yah boo sucks :-P We had a lot of trouble choosing his name. I had some good ideas but nobody else in the family seemed to agree with me. My first suggestion was “Woof” because I reckoned it would be the only name the puppy could say for himself. Then if he got himself lost he could tell everyone who he is. That got me thinking about the kind of names I’d like to be shouting all over the neighbourhood if he did get lost. Shouting “hey, Sweetie, come over here” would possibly attract the wrong kind of attention. Working on the same basis, I also thought “Free Food” would be a good choice. You might not get your dog back but at least it would provoke a positive response. A certain Pastor’s wife took this a step further by suggesting we call him “Jesus Saves”. Nice one Cathryn! But there is a serious point here. The Bible says that “God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2: 10-11). There is power in the name of Jesus for our salvation. All you need to do is call for Jesus. Call his name in the darkness and he will bring you into his glorious light!