Name It and Claim It?

Actual Biblical truths aside for a moment, G and I make fun of false prosperity gospels quite a bit. We do this by using the name-it-and-claim-it notion as a stand in for immediate gratification and wish fulfillment around the house. This has nothing to do with spiritual gifts or even God. It just has to do with our own desires. Which I'm sure makes Jesus super proud.

So, a fly on the wall might hear me exclaim, "Name it and claim it! Pizza for dinner!" as I grab my phone to call Papa John's. G has been known to say stuff like, "Name it and claim it! Hot dogs!" or "Name it and claim it! No grocery store trip for us today!" Now that I think about it, most of our exclamations are about food. And, one could just as easily say "Oh, what the hell" in place of "Name it and claim it". But what can I say? It's how we roll.

But it makes me think of the importance we place on naming things. Or, on not naming them. A few weeks ago as I was getting my hair done, the dresser and I got to talking about how I had biked to work daily for several months. She said, "It's so great that you found your thing!" I nodded, but I immediately thought to myself, I don't know that biking is my thing. I mean, I'm not an expert. I don't know lots about it and I don't push it onto other people and I generally don't even talk about it that much...do I?

Bike tour of Kyoto, Japan.

As fate would have it, I've taken my bike into the shop a couple of times in as many weeks over this break in order to get it tuned up, to put new tires/tubes on it, and to get a rack for my back pack. This is the perfect time to do maintenance because I'm not working (hallelujah) or riding (also hallelujah). I was explaining my daily ride to the bike mechanic and without thinking, I said, "I mean, I'm not a cyclist or anything." I said it in the context of how many miles I ride daily - like 16 vs 100. But later I wondered why I had bothered to differentiate myself like that.

What's in a name? If I ride my bike daily, as a major mode of transportation, as my way to commute to/from work, in all types of weather including sub-freezing temps...what does that make me, if not a "cyclist"? What does that make biking, if not "my thing"?

How else am I over-focusing on rhetoric in my life? What, exactly, do I give myself credit for, or go out of my way to deny myself the credit for? And, is this significant?