This week, I am celebrating the two-year anniversary of my baptism in a lake in Stone Mountain, Georgia, in front of my friends and family.
I had already acknowledged that Jesus was my Lord and Savior, but that moment was significant as a public declaration to the people closest to me regarding my faithfulness and promises to God moving forward.
Since then, my life and how I interpret the world around me have changed significantly. I feel that I have more clarity, patience, and responsibility than I did prior.
Making my decision to be baptized public came with the loss of a couple of people, who I believe were reacting more to previous pain they had associated with Christianity than to anything I had done to them.
Having people leave your life because you’ve decided to change your life always comes with casualties, and sometimes it’s necessary in order for you to shift without being constantly pulled back by the people closest to you.
However, talking about my struggles and eventual falling in love with Jesus Christ has sparked several private conversations with people who had struggled for years or decades to come to the Lord, despite desperately wanting to.
Most of these people were strangers until I offered them my time to share my testimony and help them in any way possible.
In my mid-20s, I felt like a fraud telling people I was a Christian when I never went to church, didn’t read the Bible, and didn’t feel any meaningful connection in my heart. My confusion led me to settle on the title of agnostic for over a decade.
So, when people come to me with their hesitations, I completely understand why, because I’ve been there.
I frequently think about whether what I’m doing sanctifies the Lord or not, and more than a few times it has stopped me from doing or saying something that I used to do in the past.
What I’ve realized most importantly is that you will bring more people to the Lord by being a living representation of how Jesus can transform a lost child like me than by yelling “Repent!” at someone followed by a passage of Scripture.
A relationship with the Lord is voluntary because you can’t force anyone to love Him. After I was baptized, my wife asked if she should get baptized, and I would always tell her that if she wanted to get baptized to please me, she was doing it for the wrong reasons.
Instead of pressuring her, I just lived by example and engaged in conversation with her. I let the Lord do the heavy lifting and prayed for Him to help her when she was ready.
Fast forward, we are now attending a local church weekly after we were invited by a stranger the same day I prayed for God to help guide my wife. Imagine my shock when my wife told me she wanted to go to church.
It’s been a couple of months, and we feel at home in this new church. It’s alive in spirit, and the people are wonderful. For the first time in both of our lives, we look forward to attending church.
Two years is a short amount of time in what I hope is a long life ahead of me, but I am still as grateful as I was on day one.
I’m an emotional mess when I think about how He’s changed my life and all the prayers He’s answered for me in such a short time. I’m appreciative of the relationship I have with Jesus and will never take it for granted because I remember what life was like without Him.
So, if you see me at church with red eyes and tears coming down my cheeks, it’s out of joy, not sadness.
God bless you all.
