Earlier today, I had the great honor of sharing my love with Christ in the way of adult baptism. I hope none of you are offended by this, knowing I was baptized as a baby, but I want to share with you the great joy I have in my heart.
I was baptized as an infant on August 24, 1980, when I was just over a month old. For this past year, after seeing some of the youth I have led baptized, God has put on my heart “reaffirming the choice on my own”. I’m so grateful that God put me in a family with parents who love the Lord, who gave me the great blessing of baptism as a baby, and declared that they would raise me in the Biblical tradition. They have done so in mighty ways.
As I’ve consistently prayed about it, my heart has grown with excitement! I feel so unworthy of the sacrifice God gave for us. That He would limit himself in human form to live as we do, and to die a horrific death when He did not deserve it, simply to show love for us and to give us the opportunity to be free. I can never say thank you enough. God gave me life on this earth, and the only thing I felt like I could give Him back was that same life, as a living sacrifice for Him. I am His. So today, on August 24th, I ventured to the sea with 4 of my closest classmates, a pastor from a local church we’ve worked with the past couple of months, 3 of his church members I call friends, and the love of God penetrating my heart.
As we prepared for the sacrament, Pastora Grace strummed a hymn on the guitar and we sang “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back”. “No turning back” were the last words I shared as I entered the plane in Milwaukee leaving for my time in Kona. There is more truth in that statement that many others I’ve shared in life.
As I walked into the ocean, each step felt more freeing than the next. Pastor Jerry prayed for me and we praised God. This act of baptism was nothing about what God would do for me. It was a declaration of my love for God. That I saw Him as a man proposing down on one knee, asking me to be his bride, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, “I love you! I give you all of me.”
When I came back to the apartment a friend asked me if I felt any different, as the act of baptism represents repentance and entering as your old self and coming up a new creation. Initially I said no, it was simply a fresh commitment to the Lord and that I simply wanted to love Him with no expectations back. Then, as I finished the sentence, God revealed to me that in these past 5 months I have become a new creation, I’d just never put words to it. The spiritual eyes He has given me, the deeper roots into Him as my foundation, and the love I’ve never felt so intensely has truly made me a new creation. Thank you Lord! Amen. May all glory be His.
Psalm 1: I want to be like a tree planted by the streams of living water!
