This summer, going through the Ignatian exercises, I’ve been asking for the grace to tell my life-story truthfully, which has caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about questions. Questions we ask one another and ourselves; questions our hearts ask; and especially questions God asks us. Then I stumbled upon this gem of a question:
What is your name? (Genesis 32:27)
This is a life changing kind of question—because it shows up in the in-between. In process.
Jacob isn’t at a conference. He isn’t in a classroom. He’s alone in the dark, right at the threshold: behind him is everything he’s been, and in front of him is everything God is calling him into. And in the middle of that night-long wrestle, God asks: “What is your name?”
Which is strange—because God already knows.
But formation isn’t God getting information. Formation is God inviting truth. Jacob has lived his whole life off a name and the strategies attached to it: heel-grabber, deceiver, hustler-for-blessing. From the beginning, he learned how to survive by controlling outcomes—scheming, bargaining, managing perception. And now God won’t let him keep transforming through performance.
So God asks him to say it out loud.
Because in the Kingdom, transformation doesn’t begin with aspiration. It begins with honesty. Jacob doesn’t spin. He doesn’t justify. He doesn’t tell a story that makes him look better. He gives the simple confession: “Jacob.”
And that’s more than a label. That’s a life story told truthfully.
Everything that name has come to mean: the patterns, the shortcuts, the fear underneath the control, the ways he’s tried to secure blessing without trust. This is what I hope the 3SI rhythm is: naming before renaming. God doesn’t argue with Jacob. God doesn’t shame him. God simply meets him in truth—and then speaks a new identity.
“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel…” (Genesis 32:28)
But notice the order: Jacob is renamed only after Jacob is named. Identity is not handed to people who are still hiding. God’s call comes most clearly to people who stop pretending.
Jacob leaves limping—marked, slowed down, no longer able to run on the old operating system. Because becoming someone new usually costs the old way of being someone.
That’s why this question still belongs in formation—especially for people who’ve collected identities over time: responsible one, strong one, peacekeeper, achiever, caretaker, survivor, “the faithful one.” God isn’t asking for a spiritual résumé. God is asking for the true name underneath the roles.
What is your name?
Not the title. Not the brand. Not the version you’ve learned to present.
The real one.
Because that’s where God starts.
