Micaiah

Our son's name isn't a common one, and it's been harder for people to pronounce than I hoped. The Japanese spelling is Mikaya, and it's pronounced essentially the same--miCAIah in English and MIkaya in Japanese.

Yet still he's been called Micah and Mi-kei-uh by English speakers, and Michael (Mikeru) by Japanese speakers. His nickname--Mickey--is easy though, so maybe he'll go by that someday if he gets tired of correcting people.

But despite the difficult spelling and pronunciation, we actually had great intentions in choosing his name. We had thought it'd be pretty easy to say in either language, and liked that it sounded so similar in both languages. We also liked the Bible character who had that name, Micaiah son of Imlah. The name means "who is like unto Jehovah?" Our God is unique, and his life emphasized that fact.

Micaiah son of Imlah was a prophet, and one of the few prophets of God available to talk with the kings of Israel and Judah before they decided if they were going to war together against another country. These kings had already gotten the go-ahead from a ton of other prophets of some other god, so Micaiah was expected to prophesy as they had.

This Micaiah seemed to me a little sarcastic, but all in all he was a straightforward man. He also feared God more than man. He didn't cave in to the pressure to conform. "But Micaiah said, 'As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me.'" (1 Kings 22:14 NIV)

We don't know what became of Micaiah son of Imlah. His story is mentioned in both 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18, but no extra details are given. All we know is that one of the kings didn't like his prophesy, and so he imprisoned him.

But we hope and pray that our son will become a man who speaks God's truth fearlessly. That's why we named him Micaiah.