There is a special gift that God has prepared and is waiting until we get to heaven before He gives it to us. It might be perhaps the most special gift other than the gift of life forever in heaven. God has prepared a white stone for each of us with a name on it. God will give us a gift of immeasurable proportions - a gift that gives us a name based on our relationship with Him.*

We have the God of the Universe waiting for us every day to show us His love. We forget and think that our capacity to receive gifts from God comes from our merit. We stay caught up in the thought of striving for everything we want or need, even the love we search for daily. God is waiting for us to spend time with Him, yet we try to find other places that we would rather be. These other places are places not of God where we go to find comfort and belonging. We often wander from place to place and thing to thing never fulfilled. In John 15, Jesus tells us that we must stay with Him and Him only. We must make our home with Him and He will make His home in us. To stop the wandering we must realize that our identity comes from simply "staying at home" with Him and not trying to fill the void in other ways. It may be surprising but holiness also comes not out of doing, but staying at home. Our real home as Christians is Christ. When we go out place to place searching for love and fulfillment, that fulfillment is as close as simply stopping to find it. Our home, our love, and our fulfillment is Christ who is in us.

My Challenge to You

Take a moment and reflect on what it is that you engage in when you feel lonely. Is there a particular place that you go when you need fulfillment? Do you use a substance to give you temporary relief from the thoughts that trouble you? If the answer to any of those questions is anything but Christ then there is great news. Christ can and wants to be the answer to every one of those. Nothing is more satisfying than the author and creator of your life, who is Jesus Himself.

Nothing sounds as good to us as when someone knows and uses our name. God has a name like no other for you. He has a special name that He calls you and that only He knows. In those times of loneliness, despair, or trouble, listen carefully and you will hear God calling you by name to Him. Go to Him and find true fulfillment.

* "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." (Revelation 2:17)