PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 64 – WHAT NAMES DO YOU LIKE TO CALL YOUR CHILDREN?

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 64: WHAT NAMES DO YOU LIKE TO CALL YOUR CHILDREN?

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello precious ladies. Last week I talked to you about you possibly, or hopefully, eradicating the word “kids” from your vocabulary. I wonder if you have tried to do it this past week. I hope so, because really, there are better names to call your children.

You say, “Well I am so used to calling them kids, what on earth do I call them?”

You can call them children. That’s a lovely word.

If we go back to the Hebrew, the most common word for children in the Bible is the word ben.  You are familiar with that word. You hear names such as Ben-Yehuda, Ben-Yohannan and so on. It just means “son of so-and-so.”

This word comes from the root word banah, which means “to build.”

That’s a word that’s spoken to us as mothers. In Proverbs 14:1 it says: “Every wise woman buildeth her house . . ..”

The word is banah and from the word banah comes the word ben, meaning children. The word for children literally means “the builder of the family name.”

I like that. I think that’s a wonderful meaning.

So when we’re saying, “Children, let’s go” it’s a more powerful thing to say than, “Okay kids, let’s go” because you are speaking that wonderful word, “The builder of the family name” into your children.

You can sit down with your children and say, “Children, I’m sorry I’ve been calling you kids. I just realized that’s not the right word. Kids belong to the goat company and they’re not the company that God is bringing into the eternal realm. “I want us as a family to be part of that company, so I’m changing my vocabulary. When I call you children, that means ‘the builder of the family name.’

“Children, every one of you are helping to build our family. You’re helping to build the honor of our family name.  Not only now, but in generations to come. I want you to know, children, you are very important in our family. We are all together building.”

They realize themselves that they are part of the building. They do not want to do anything that will bring destruction to the family and spoil the family name. No! They are part of building the family name.

This is the most common Hebrew word for children, but there are many others.

I wrote a chapter on all the names that God calls children in my book, The Power of Motherhood. I hope you have this book and if you don’t, I’d love for you to get it because this is a book for every mother.

It goes into the Bible to see what God says about you as a mother. Not what the world says, but what God says. It is filled with Scripture. You will be amazed at how much God says to you as a mother.

But in the chapter I talk about all the names that God calls children. God has such a love for children that I found 50 different Hebrew words in the Bible for children. Then I found 26 Greek words in the New Testament for children.  They add up to about 4,000 words.

As I realized this I was amazed. We know some of the very, very important doctrines of the faith. We expect our pastors and preachers to talk about them. We think of grace. The word grace, is used 39 times (although, including the New Testament it’s 170 times in the Bible).

Now love, oh love, is such a preeminent theme in the Bible. But it’s only used 131 times in the Old Testament and 310 altogether, including the New.

What about prayer? The word pray is used 240 times in the Old Testament and only 68 in the New Testament, yet we know what a powerful doctrine it is.

And yet, the Hebrew word for children and all the other words God uses for children add up to thousands! I thought, “Wow. How often do we hear a message on Sunday morning about having children or the blessing of children? Or how to train children?”

How often do you hear a message about children and yet these words, the words for children, there are thousands more than there are for some of the most predominant themes that are preached about in our churches.

Do you think we are a little bit imbalanced in our churches? I think it’s time that we heard more about children, raising children, training children, and having children, don’t you, because God speaks about it a lot more than they do in churches.

We can call our children “children,” that’s wonderful. But there are amazing words that God calls our children.

He calls them our GIFTS. In Psalm 127:3 in The Message Bible it says: “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?”

In many other Scriptures it talks about our children being gifts, not only gifts to us, but gifts to the world.

Do you remember what it said of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5? “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

That word “ordained” is a word meaning “to give.” God said, “I brought you into the world as a gift to the nations.”

But dear ladies, every child that God gives us is a gift to us, but every child is also a gift to the world. God gives this child—a new child, a unique child, a precious child that there’s never been anyone like them in the world before and there will never be anyone like them in the world again. Isn’t that incredible?

This child, full of unique, special, and amazing gifts, He’s given to the world to bring forth these gifts and to bless the world.

So your children are gifts. You can remind them: “You are a gift to Daddy and Mummy. You are a gift to the world. You are a gift to your brothers and sisters. They have another friend for life and there will never be anyone as precious as another brother or sister. Brothers and sisters are closer than anyone else on earth, apart from husband and wife.”

Secondly, God calls our children BLESSINGS. I remember a dear friend of mine; in fact her name is Heather. For those of you who live in New Zealand, you will know precious Evan and Heather Jones who look after Above Rubies in New Zealand.

Heather is now a grandmother, like me, but Heather and her sister, Val, and I were raising our children together in the early days in New Zealand.

When Heather’s children were little, they were quite a challenge. They needed lots of help. Oh goodness me, I can remember times when she was so overwhelmed and she would call her children her “little brats.” And they were brats!

Well, many children can be brats. Sometimes they would come to my home and, oh goodness me, I would think they were brats, too.

But, one day God spoke to Heather. He said, “Heather, what are you calling My children? They’re not just your children. I gave them to you, they’re My children and they’re not brats. They are blessings.”

She really heard God speak to her and Heather listened to the Lord. Heather always listens to the Lord. She changed her vocabulary. She stopped calling her children brats and she started calling them blessings, always referring to them as blessings.

Often she would be at my place and we would be enjoying fellowship together. It would be time to go and she would say, “Come on, blessings! It’s time to go.”

She always called them blessings, gathering them up as blessings. The amazing thing was, as she changed her vocabulary and as she began to call them her blessings, they became blessings. Children become what you call them.

I remember speaking about this subject many, many years ago. We were living in Australia at the time. I was asked to speak at this church in the part of the city where there were a lot of very poor families. There were families who had been through so much stuff.

This church was actually full of trophies of grace, of fathers and mothers and people just saved out of such terrible situations.

I remember one mother was one who had watched her own father shot in front of her eyes. She had been dragged up. She was a pretty rough sort. In fact, a lot of these were the rough sorts.

Any way, I went to speak there and I had just got this revelation of calling our children what God wants to call them and how I was eliminating the word “kids” from my vocabulary. So I challenged them about it.

I went back to speak there a few months later. As I came toward the church and was walking up the driveway, a number of these ladies came out to meet me. They said, “Nancy, Nancy, it works!”

I said, “What works?”

“Oh you know, what you talked to us about last time. We’ve stopped calling our children ‘kids’ and we’re calling them ‘lambs’ and it’s changed our motherhood. We’re no longer yelling and screaming at our children every day. When we call them lambs, we’re soft and tender towards them. It’s changed our mothering.”

That was such a beautiful testimony, and this was coming from these mothers who had been dragged up themselves, who were pretty rough and raw around the edges.

But as they changed their vocabulary it was changing their mothering.

So be careful what you call your children. Start calling them these wonderful Biblical names: Gifts, blessings, the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb.

The Bible even calls our children “THE BELOVED FRUIT OF THE WOMB.” This is how God feels about them.

In Hosea 9:16, that’s where we read “the beloved fruit of their womb.”  

Other translations say: “cherished offspring,” “precious ones,” “dearest offspring,” “darlings,” “much loved little ones.”

You can use these words—they’re Biblical. You can say:

“Oh, my much-loved little ones, how I love you?”

“My little darlings, come to Mummy.”

“Oh my precious ones, it’s time to sit at the table. Come and get up now, my cherished offspring.”

This is Biblical vocabulary. Do you want to start changing your vocabulary?

Another one is REWARDS. “The fruit of the womb is the reward.” You could say, “Children, you are my precious rewards. I have got a prize from God. He gave me you! You are my prize!”

Now some of these words are going to be a bit much to call your growing young people, your teens. You’ll have to change your vocabulary as they get older.

You may want to call them your ARROWS. Psalm 127:4 says: “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.”

Arrows, those are mighty weapons of war so I’m sure your young people won’t mind you calling them a weapon of war! You can remind them, “Yes, you are an arrow in God’s army and this is what we are training you for.”

One of our children, Evangeline and her husband Howard, they named one of their sons, Arrow. I’ve talked to you about Arrow. He was the one who had a very, very bad burn recently and God has so wondrously healed his face. I think his skin looks more beautiful and perfect than before the burn.

He is Arrow and when he was young Howard would be cutting all the boys hair and he would shave Arrow’s head so that the shape of his hair was in an arrow. He was reminded continually that he was an arrow in God’s army.

Our children are also called OLIVE PLANTS in Psalm 128:3. They’re called MATURE PLANTS in Psalm 144:12, talking about our sons growing up as mature plants, even in their youth.

God doesn’t want our children to stay babyish and foolish. He wants them to grow up to be mature young plants, sturdy young trees, trees of righteousness.

It talks about our daughters as POLISHED CORNERSTONES. They are princesses in a palace. You can call your daughters PRINCESSES! That’s a beautiful word for them and it’s a Biblical word.

They are associated with a palace (Psalm 144;12) and they are princesses and daughters of the King of kings, Lord of lords, and God of gods. They belong to a royal Kingdom.

So remember to call them princesses. As you call them princesses they are going to want to be like princesses. Our daughters should want to be like princesses. You find that our little daughters want to be like princesses.

Have you found that when they want to dress up, they want to dress up like a princess? I have found that my little granddaughters and my older granddaughters if it’s a dress up party, or the little ones are playing dress up, that’s what they choose.

They don’t choose to dress up like some career woman going out into her career. No, they always want to be a princess or a queen. They want to be someone beautiful, with their beautiful long dress. They want to be so glorious.

As they get older, sometimes or mostly, they don’t think about being like that any longer because they get used to being like everyone else in society and they look the opposite to a princess.

They take on the vogue of the day, which are usually jeans and a top. It doesn’t look very much like a princess. Of course it’s always fun when it’s a dress up night. They can dress up for something special and when they do that they always dress up like a princess.

We always have lots of parties here at our place, birthday parties, and different functions. A lot of them we make them dress up parties.

In fact when Serene’s little girl, Breeze, was only four years old, she always loved to be a princess. She loved to dance like a princess. She loved to dress up like a princess. She wanted to marry a prince.

So when she was four years old, for her party Serene decided that we would have a ball—a princess ball for Breezy. She called it “Breezy’s Ball.”

Now when we have parties here, if it’s a birthday party for one of the little ones, maybe they’re only three, four, or five years of age, we don’t say to the other cousins, “This is a party just for the little girls” and ask the other cousins and friends that age to come.

No, we don’t do it like that here. It doesn’t matter what age they are; the party is for everybody in the family. So everybody comes—mums and dads, uncles and aunties, grandparents, and all the cousins.

So Serene said, “Okay, this is Breezy’s ball, I want everyone coming dressed as a princess. The boys and the men are to come dressed as a prince or knight or something pretty cool as a man.”

Well, it turned out to be the most amazing dress up party. Our family knows how to dress up.

The girls dressed up so magnificently from the oldest right down to the youngest and all the little girls in their princess dresses and Breezy in her princess dress.

Then we had all the beautiful, lovely dancing. It was so wonderful that it has now become tradition. We have Breezy’s ball every year. Everyone get’s dressed up and it is just part of our tradition now.

And now, how many have we had? The one coming up soon, just before Thanksgiving will be her tenth birthday and we will be having another Breezy’s ball.

Now, in one of the rooms in our house that we use for visitors we have a wardrobe in that room where we have all these evening gowns and princess dresses. When it’s time for a ball or a dress up party they can come and hopefully find something they want to wear. That is all there for them.

Of course they are always going to Goodwill and finding more and more princess dresses that they can always get more cheaply.

So that is a beautiful thing to call your daughters and it’s Biblical. I think the more you call them that the more they want to be who they’re meant to be, a princess in a palace as it says in Psalm 144:12.

Another name the Bible calls our children is SIGNS AND WONDERS. Isaiah 8:18: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts . . ..”

Everyone of the precious children that God has given to you are given to you for signs and for wonders to show forth the power of God. Everyone is a miracle.

Many of you have had miracle births and miracle pregnancies. You know that your child or your children are only here by a miracle, but apart from that they’re a miracle.

I mean, God created them. They are miraculous, unique, one of a kind, AN UNREPEATABLE MIRACLE.

You have miracles around you. Sometimes you say, “I haven’t seen God do any miracles in my life lately.” Well open your eyes, lovely mothers, and look at your children. They are divine miracles from God.

Embrace them as miracles. Call them your MIRACLES. Say to them, “You are my little miracle child!” Let them know they are a miracle from God. They’re a miracle in your life and you have yet to see the wonders and the miracles that God is going to do in their lives.

The more your mothering years go on, the more you will see the miracles. When you get to my season, looking back on the lives of our children and even the lives of our grandchildren who are now getting married and starting their families, we have seen and are seeing miracle after miracle.

Not only are they miracles, but we’re constantly seeing miracles that God does in their lives.

We see the miracle in Arden’s life. He just popped in this morning to bring the computer. It is incredible just to look at him and see him and what God has done in his life and how wonderful, healthy, and amazing he looks. God has brought him from stage four cancer and to now see the miracle he is today.

Last night Isaiah popped in to say hi. He’s another miracle. In fact, it was at the very same time that we were facing Arden with stage four cancer that Isaiah had a terrible head injury in a car accident. The surgeon said that he didn’t believe he would ever come out of a nursing home or ever be normal again.

Yet here he is, walking around just so wonderful, healthy, and glorious. God is continuously doing miracles. Those are just some of the big ones. We see little and middling ones every day. Some of them we don’t even see what God is doing.

He is such a wonderful God.

What about our LAMBS? Isaiah 40:11: “ He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”

God is using the analogy of a shepherd with sheep, but He is talking about people here. He calls the little ones the lambs.

God calls our children lambs. He doesn’t call them kids. That’s not in the Bible. He calls them lambs so we can call them lambs or lambkins.

Another name is the WORK OF GOD’S HANDS. Isaiah 29:23: “When I see My children, the work of My hands . . ..”

Yes, that’s what they are. Not the work of our hands, the work of His hands.

In Malachi 2:15 they are called the GODLY SEED, the GODLY OFFSPRING.

In Hosea 9:11 they are called GLORY. Did you know that our children are called glory, the glory of the nation? Yes, that’s what God calls them—the glory.

Even Paul called his children in the Lord, ”glory,” saying: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our GLORY and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:19, 20).

This is what our children will be as we raise them in the ways of the Lord. This should be one of the things that we seek after that when we stand before the Lord that we will present our children before Him and they would be our joy and our glory as we present them before Him.

And to any grandparents listening, your grandchildren are called your CROWN! Isn’t that wonderful?

Well, there are just a few of the words used in the Bible. You don’t have to keep to them; there are so many words you can make up yourself.

You can call your children:

 “My amazing children,”

“My darlings,”

 “My incredible children,” or

“My precious ones.”

You call them all these wonderful, positive, loving, and endearing names. Amen?

Even naming your children. When you’re naming your children, think about the name. It’s great to think of a lovely sounding name, but it’s even more important to think of names that have great a meaning so that you can tell your children the meaning of their name and they can live out their meaning.

We called one of our daughters Evangeline. That means “evangel, the bearer of the Good News of the Gospel.”

We’ve told Evangeline the meaning of her name from the time she was a little girl. She knew that’s who she was. She was a bearer of the good tidings of the Gospel, so that’s what she’s always done.

Ever since she was a little girl she’s talked about Jesus. Now she’s 54 years old. Wherever she goes she still talks about Jesus. You can’t go anywhere and not hear her talking about Jesus. She is her name.

She has ten children. Every one of their names has a specific meaning. My time is running out, but here is just one: Zadok. He is the oldest and his name in Hebrew means “turning many to righteousness.”

He’s known that’s the meaning of his name since he was a little boy and that anointing has been on his life since he was a little boy and now at nearing 27 years of age, it’s still on him. He is constantly leading people to Jesus, leading people to righteousness just by his lifestyle.

There is something powerful about the names we call our children.

“Dear Father, we thank You for the power of words. Help us to realize the power of words, even how we speak to our children, even the names we call our children.

 

“Help us, Lord God, to call them the positive names. Even if we’re calling them children, which is so powerful, ‘the builder of the family name.’

 

“Give us a vision of the power of what we speak in to our children and what we call our children. We ask this in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.”

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