Jehovah is Gracious Steven Long 10/27/13

Three weeks ago we had a blessing enter into our lives. Our third child, John H. Long III arrived in our arms on October 4, 2013 at 5:51am. What a joy he is! I can't express in words the happiness my wife and I, as well as my other two children feel.

And like many parents, we had already decided upon his name before he arrived in this world. Names are important. They will be that which identify us for the rest of our lives. We will be known and loved by our names. In our culture names don't seem like anything significant. We just kinda pick a name for our children because we have to call them something. It wasn't always like this. In Biblical times names meant something. They were meant to convey a quality, hope, or characteristic of the one being named.

For example, after the death of Able, Eve then bore another son and named him Seth. The word 'Seth' means to 'appoint or place; to give.' And she conveys this very thing in Gen 5:25 when she states, "God has [Sethed] appointed for me another seed instead of Able." Abraham is another fine example. His name means 'father of a multitude.' We can easily see that this was true of the great Patriarch. Jacob also "lived" his name. The deceiver finally had his name changed to 'He prevails with God' (Israel).

And so, my wife and I wanted to put some thought into our children's names. We named our first born, Eliab, which means 'God is my father.' This was kind of our own dedication to God as we purposed to teach our son of his true Heavenly Father. In the same way, our daughter was Sarah, 'Princess.' We wanted her to possess the qualities of a godly woman, worthy of being a princess of the Kingdom of God.

And our newest was somewhat of a double blessing. My own father's name is John. Dad has been a huge blessing to our family and we wanted to honor him with a namesake. At the same time, we wanted our son's name to have significance. John seemed so perfect. Then name means 'Jehovah is gracious.'

And how gracious He has been to us! You see, my wife and I had tried to have children several times after our daughter was born. And every time the pregnancy ended in miscarriage; some of them traumatic, ending in a DNC. We longed to have another child but it seemed as if God continued to crush us.

But after 8 years He finally heard us and graced us with another little one. How truly He was gracious. When we thought there was no more hope; when we were crushed beyond repair He showed His love and compassion and remembered our groans, our weepings, our longings to have another child.

We are thrilled that our little John is finally here. We can't wait to see how he will grow and become the man that God desires him to be. But most of all we are so grateful that Jehovah is gracious!