A friend shared an article today about faith and baptism. Or perhaps salvation and baptism, better said. Before I had any real notion about what either meant, they both seemed little more than something “religious” people did. For my part, now that I understand just a little more about faith, the two are intertwined for me like DNA strands.
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I had a deep curiosity about “why” in all forms, but mainly I wanted to know why life seemed to be slipping through my fingers without much participation on my end. I wanted to know why things hurt, and bled, and died. I wanted to know why, if God so loved the world, did he create so many people to be jerks?
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I began to learn things about Jesus, and I wanted to know more. But I also knew me at the same time, and that I wanted to forget. I’d been both chasing and running away from that guy my whole life.
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I began attending church, out of curiosity. I had friends who went–good friends–and I wanted to know what it was all about. I’d also known people who were hypocrites about faith, and church, and Jesus, and I didn’t understand how the two could exist at the same time.
So I heard the gospel. I heard about God, and creation, and Jesus, and death, and resurrection. I asked God “why?” and it was like he said “come and find out” in my heart.
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At first my faith was like an old-fashioned lantern that had just been lit inside me, and the…little lamp adjuster thingy was slowly increasing the brightness within, but not by my hand. I knew that the increasing brightness within was edification, and Jesus quickly became more than a concept. More than a metaphor. More than everything else.
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Because Jesus stirred faith within the deep parts of me, as the light increased within me, I began to see “why” and I began to see God and I began to see myself coated with the mud of my life. It cracked sometimes when it dried, and I looked like an old dried-up river bottom. But there was always more mud.
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What to do about the mud?
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I heard someone talking about Jesus washing feet in the upper room and while it sounded gross (because feet are gross), getting the dust and dirt washed off also sounded wonderful. And while the dirt covering me was metaphorical in nature, it still needed to be washed off. Because I knew that it would eventually be the death of me otherwise.
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One day by a river, I asked Jesus to make me clean. I accepted him and asked him to accept me, in all the mud and muck and grime of my life. He said “come to me, all who are weary” and I was weary. He talked about finding rest for my soul and I knew that was what I wanted. My words were not poetic and were not arranged in a beautiful bouquet of words–no, there were tears and great, wrenching sobs. But it was the real me, and unlikely as it seemed to me, that was what he wanted.
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I could see all this mud, and I wanted it to go away, to be far from me. What to do?
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I talked to people who knew a lot more about all that stuff than me, and it was not long after that a very close friend helped me take a walk down three steps into a pool of warm water. I went under dirty as a wet dog after a backyard roll and I came up different. Cleanliness than became less of a concept and more of a reality. But I also realized that Jesus saw me in spite of my dirtiness, my darkness. He’d always seen me, and wanted me.
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It’s the same for you.
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He doesn’t say “Come to me, all who are ready.” You’ll never be ready.
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He just says come to me.
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Come to me tired from your journey not yet over. Come to me dirty and I will make you clean. Come to me hurting, and covered in lies about yourself and about me and let me reveal the truth.
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Having faith is just the beginning. Baptism is the next step on the path. The picture below is where I began my walk. Literally.
A Work in Progress 