Andy Stoddard ~ How to Get A Good Name
I really do love the book of Proverbs. There’s just some really good stuff within this great book: wisdom that can help us live our lives in ways that are just so powerful and so good.
Ways that are just so true. Listen to what we are told today in Proverbs 21: 1-2:
1 A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and favor is better than silver or gold.
2 The rich and the poor have this in common:
the Lord is the maker of them all.
In this passage, we see what is truly priceless in the world. Not power or wealth or status, but this. A good name. It is better than anything else you can have in all the world.
A good name is not for sale. A good name doesn’t come from ill-gotten gain. A good name speaks to who we are as people. A good name is one of the few things that really does matter.
But how do we get a good name? Verse two tells us.
We see in verse two where our worth comes from. It comes from this fact: God is our maker. He is the maker of the rich. He is the maker of the poor. He is the maker of us all.
Everyone matters. Everyone is important. Everyone is made in God’s image. And Jesus died for everyone.
You have never met an unimportant person. You have never met what C.S. Lewis calls a “mere mortal.”
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors… Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.
God is the maker of us all. Everyone matters. Treat everyone like they are that sacred. Because they are. Treat everyone with the worth that they have. That’s how you get a priceless treasure. That’s how you get a good name.