It was a small, humble gathering along the banks of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River in Lock Haven where folks from our church, Big Woods Bible Church, gathered. There we witnessed the baptism of Daniel, my youngest son, who had made the choice a few weeks earlier of receiving Christ into his heart. At first, Daniel just wanted to be baptized because he had seen so many of his friends be baptized as well as his older brother, Cameron, who made a similar decision when attending kindergarten. I have been somewhat hesitant with Daniel because I know his cognitive understanding of things eternal is not as sharp as Cameron's.
I didn't want our Pastor to baptize Mario or SpongeBob. Daniel has quite an imagination. Instead, I wanted Daniel to fully understand why he was being baptized. Nevertheless, Daniel took it upon himself to approach our Pastor one afternoon following a church baptism to say that he wanted to be baptized, too. The Pastor assured that he would as soon as he had the chance to come over to the house to talk with him & me.
Daniel promptly informed me of this exchange of information & to let me know that "Pastor Ted" was coming to see us.
When we all sat down, Daniel, Pastor, & I, we began inquiring exactly what Daniel wanted. Daniel told us he had prayed to God a few months earlier. Pastor asked him what he told God. Daniel replied confidently, "I want to get baptized."
So we went through a simple presentation of what it meant to follow Jesus, as I tried to bring the salvation message to his understanding level. I said to follow God, he needs to promise God that he would try his best to live his life in a way that he would not "hurt God's feelings" by his actions...or by disobeying God. Baptism is a symbolic ritual that tells all those who witness it, that he has made a promise to God.....and if he did not actually make that promise to God, he would essentially not be telling the truth if he went through with baptism.
Daniel understood what this meant & agreed to pray with us to ask God to forgive him of wanting to act his own way instead of the way God wanted...and promised God that he would, indeed, try as hard as he could to please God with his actions so he would not hurt His feelings. There were a few tears as he understood the impact of the words he was saying to God. And after praying, he blubbered out, "But I still get in trouble in school!!" We both assured him that times like that will still happen, but now he has God's Spirit living in his heart now & he has help in being able to know the right way to please God.
Now, during a summer that has been unusually wet & cool, Daniel stood before some of his friends from his church & his family as Pastor Ted relayed how Daniel made the decision to follow Christ...and to be baptized. We weren't sure the event would happen because the rain had risen the river level & had made things a bit soft along the river bank. But we were able to scrape together a change of dry clothes, a towel, & a photographer (thanks to our fellow "Big Woodser", Traci Fotorny) & celebrate Daniel's decision to join a family far bigger than his own.
