One of the unique attributes of trail life is that everyone on the Appalachian Trail has their own unique Trail Name. It is usually given to you by others along the way. You may show up with a name you like – but it may not be the one you end up with. You can usually veto a name that you can’t tolerate. The bottom line though – you end up with a name that you earn or that best describes you.
Names people have ended up with include ‘Compass’ – a guy who just had a difficult time heading the right way each day. He would routinely begin his day packing up and heading off the wrong direction. So his name was clearly tongue-in-check. Other obvious names include ‘Slow-walker’, ‘Sunshine’, ‘Young Beard’, ‘Stinky’, ‘Tiny’, etc.
What would it be like if we were given Spiritual names as we lived our Christian life? What if the people around us named us? What kind of name would we have? Hopefully we would have names like ‘Faithful’, ‘Joyful’, ‘Prayer-Warrior’, ‘Gracious’, ‘Kind-hearted’, etc. We might be shocked to find that those that know us best would name us things like ‘Angry’, ‘Bitter’, ‘Ship-wreck’, ‘Selfish’, etc.
Thankfully we don’t get ‘Trail Names’ in our spiritual life. We will however stand before Jesus at the Judgement Seat of Christ and we will be given rewards for what we did or did not do for Him. Now is the time to determine which rewards we will be given and whether or not we will hear from Him those most cherished words: “Well done, though good and faithful Servant”.
