Many
of my old friends used to know me as "Bo". I have
had many folks ask me about why I spell my name with an "H"
now. So, for those of you who don't know the story, I will tell
it now. This is probably the singular most fantastic message
I have ever personally received from the Lord.
Back in 1993,
I attended a counseling/recovery group that met every Wednesday
night. It was my last meeting with this particular group, becuase
I was leaving to go on tour with the Kim Boyce band the very next
day. Therefore, I had to do something called "closure".
This is the process of saying all the things that need to be said,
and making sure that there are no loose ends hanging, so to speak.
I spoke to each person in the group in turn, telling them how
they had impacted my life and what I appreciated about them. It
was a very emotional and touching experience. That night we also
discussed the significance of my name for some reason. My therapist,
Max, asked if I'd ever thought about changing my name. No, I had
always liked "Bo", even though it was short for "Bobo",
my great grandmother's maiden name, which means "clown"
or "idiot" in many languages. Well, I must admit I've
always been teased about that name. It takes a tough man to be
named "Bobo"! Ever since I was a small kid I was fascinated
with the name God might have for me, the one I read about in
Rev. 2:17..."to him who overcomes I will give him
a white stone, and a new name written on the stone, which no one
knows except him who receives it".
The very next morning I woke up in my bunk on the tour bus as
we were travelling down the highway. It was my habit then to spend
20 minutes just laying in the arms of God, not saying anything,
but just letting Him love on me. During this time I fell back
asleep and had an astounding dream:
I was playing catch with a man I knew to be Jesus on the shore
of the Sea of Galilee. It was twilight and the sky was awash in
deep purples and reds. We tossed the ball back and forth, then
after awhile, Jesus knelt down and picked up a small white stone.
He casually tossed it to me and it rolled up to my feet. I picked
up the stone with excitement and held it up close to my eyes.
I could see that something was inscribed in the rock, but it was
fuzzy, and I couldn't focus on it. I kept saying "I want
to see! I want to see!" Finally, the inscription clearly
came into focus. Plainly engraved in the white stone were the
letters BOH.
All at once, I awoke with chills, remembering the verse in Revelations
quoted earlier. Then, I remembered how God changed Abram's name
to AbraHam, and his wife Sarai, became SaraH! (He put the H of
Yahweh into their names!) I wondered if the H had any significance,
or if the word BOH might mean something in Hebrew. Sure enough,
I asked a friend of mine who spoke Hebrew...and she said excitedly,
"Bo, you're not going to believe this, but the letters BOH
in Hebrew literally mean, 'In Him'!!.
Whoa! I've spelled it that way ever since. I told Max, my counselor,
the story and he absolutely loved it. Now, everytime we see each
other he greets me saying, "Hello, Bo with an H, and H is
for Holy".
So there you go. I'm still the same Bo you know from way back
when, but God's name for me is something very special to my heart. |
