God Did It His Way
Instead of doing it my way!
My wife and I have been blessed with two children whom we enjoy
very much. For years now I have had this dream, or plan, that I would be the one
baptizing them when they chose to accept Christ. I could see it in my mind's eye
taking them through the routine that shows their commitment and asks their
neighbors and friends for support in their new direction in life.
Well, they were both baptized on Sunday evening, March 10th in 2002. Not only
was I not the one with the honor of being used in the baptism, I didn't even get
to see the event. I had brought a camera so that I could take pictures, and I
was in the building at the time, but I was in another room.
I didn't get my way at all, but let me tell you why this way was
so much better than what I had envisioned. So here's what happened, and we need
to start this with the events two days before, on Friday, March 8th.
That evening we attended a "Power Team" presentation (their website is at
www.thepowerteam.com) with our Sunday School
class and had a great time. I have never seen so many bricks shattered except
when I was helping rebuild a Ford plant (in Norfolk, VA) and got to watch the
wrecking crews empty half of the assembly line while we were modifying the other
half.
When they were finishing up with an altar call, both
my children, as well as dozens of other people went forward. My son went on his
own, and my daughter wanted an adult she trusted to go with her, so she picked
my Sunday School teacher! Then she asked me to join them, and I did.
Both my children had accepted Christ before, but this
time they were going forward to commit to baptism. They both chose to come back
on Sunday evening, March 10th to be baptized by the Power Team leader. No, not
by me, nor by our church pastor, not even at our church.
My wife and I struggled with this. Not because it
wasn't "by the book". My son had already attended the "pre-baptism" classes at
our church, and my daughter had not. We were not convinced that the decisions
they were making were quality decisions, we wondered how much of what they were
doing was an 'emotional' reaction to a very emotionally charged evening.
After prayer, we decided to move forward despite our
doubts and plans. Oh, I forgot to mention. We had already planned to have our
son baptized during the Easter break in April, as we had his paternal
grandparents coming in for the week, and they would want to be a part of that
special day.
When two of their cousins learned that we were going
back to the show on Sunday evening, they wanted to come along. We have often
taken them to church on Sundays when their parents asked us, so they were very
comfortable with us. So, we went to church that night with a camera, two
children and two nieces. We were told to take our children to the baptismal at
the altar call, so we planned to have one adult go with them, and the other stay
in the sanctuary with the two nieces to observe the baptism.
Well, wouldn't you know it. God had another plan,
despite all the ones that we had made.
Our two nieces went forward at the altar call, and
wanted me to walk up there with them. That messed up my plans! I had to go to
the back room with them, as they were too young to go on their own. I sat
through the gospel presentation given by the counselor (and her younger trainee)
along with my nieces, and heard them say they wanted to give their hearts to
Jesus. Because of the paperwork, and the desire on everyone's part to help them
understand as much as possible what they were doing, it took long enough for me
to not make it back for my own children's baptism. I missed what I had come for,
I missed what I had prayed for, I didn't get to share with my children something
special in their life. Or did I?
Oh, my wife almost missed the baptism, too. Once she
helped them get ready, she had to go down the hallway to get back into the
sanctuary. Of course, there was one of the Power Team, at 6 foot tall, over 300
pounds saying to her, "I'm sorry ma'am, but they just started the baptisms."
Well, he may have had more than double her body weight, but when she looked him
in the eye and said, "My children are getting baptized in there" he knew not to
resist when she pushed him aside! Boy, do I wish I had seen that, too!
While waiting for me afterwards, my children picked up some
souvenirs from the sanctuary. Remains of bricks that caught their attention
because they resembled the stone tablets that Charlton Heston used is the movie
"Moses" for the 10 Commandments. They were blank, and my children were talking
about how they could put something on them when we got together for the ride
home.
That's when my children learned that I had not taken
any pictures, and in fact, had not even been in the audience as their mother and
maternal grandparents were. I told them that I was sad I had missed a very
important event in their life, but I had attended something else that was very
important in God's eyes. I could hear the sadness in their voices, until I told
them about their cousins' decisions, and my children's sadness turned to awe.
Not just excitement, but awe.
We spoke about those blank bricks, and about God's new
covenant as shown in Jeremiah 31. How we could leave those bricks blank, to
remember the new covenant they had just entered, on March 10th, 2002 which was
written not in stone, but on their hearts. We also spoke how the picture of that
covenant is not on paper nor on film, but also in the hearts of all involved.
Maybe we don't need a picture. We talked about how I didn't get to do what I
wanted, but I got to do what God wanted me to do, and how that was going to
happen in their lives more and more as time goes by.
Well, come to think of it, maybe I did get what I
wanted, just not in the way that I wanted. And I got more, as did my children,
and their two cousins.
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