A True Love Story......With A Happy Ending

As a pastor, I get to participate in some pretty neat events. I have baptized a lot of folks, and I never tire of climbing down to the creek at Rapha and wading out into the water to perform this ceremony. Standing there in the water, watching as the ones coming to be baptize make their way out to the middle. Praying over them and then lowering them under the water. For that brief moment, they truly do symbolize someone who had died and has been lowered into a grave. Under the water, they are cut off from everything, just as our old sin nature cuts us off from true life with God. Then you bring them up out of the water, and they take that first gasp of air....It is like being resurrected from the dead. They couldn't bring themselves up on their own....they trusted you to do so. Just as I cannot save myself, I have to trust Jesus because he is the only one who holds the key to eternal life. The words of John 14:6 ring with eternal truth..."I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I have christened babies. Lot of people don't understand what a christening is, and that's o.k., I didn't either.To christen a child is not a baptism into life as a believer, to me when a baby is christened, the parents are bringing that child before God, declaring their intention that their child will be raised in a home where the tenants of the Bible will be taught. In other words, these parents will raise their child according to the instruction of God. I had the honor and privilege of christening my two grand children, Tyler and Ashley. It was a special moment for me, as I looked down into those eyes that were filled with innocence and purity. My son and his wife have honored that christening by raising their children in a godly home.

Yesterday was a first for me. I performed a wedding ceremony where the couple wanted to renew their vows. This past year had been a tumultuous one that has seen God bring victory to their lives and to their family. In fact the ceremony coincided with the one year anniversary of clean time for the groom. This time last year, life was hard and there was much destruction around this young couple. The wife had reached the end of her rope and had declared to her husband, either you change or I'm leaving you and taking the children. Of course the young man wanted to change. But before that could happen, he needed the assurance that his wife wouldn't leave him. She refused to give it, saying, "It's up to you whether I stay or go. Get yourself clean. The man I'm married to today is not  the man I fell in love with." Hard words to hear, and it totally unsettled the young man. He kept wanting to "FIX" her and the relationship before he started on the road to recovery. I kept telling him, "You've got to take care of you first or there won't be any family to go home to." Slowly but surely he began to work on himself. Each step was painful and tedious but he continued and did not waver from his commitment to see this all the way through.

The young man completed the program and returned home. He took a job that he really didn't want to take because in his eyes, it was beneath him. This young man was full of pride and vanity. But there on that job, God began to teach him something that he truly needed.........how to be humble. This simple act of working in a place that he thought he'd never be in, doing it because it was the right thing to do, was the fuel that kept him going. He wanted to quit, but he didn't. He wanted to run away and get high, but he didn't. He stuck it out and it yesterday was the reward. This young man now owns the business that he really didn't want to work at. That came about because he did all the little things God asked of him. He did them with a good attitude. He did them when he didn't want to do them. But he did them. This young man has not taken any short cuts on the road to his sobriety. He has followed God at every turn, even when he didn't understand the "whys" of what God was asking of him.

So last night, in the chapel at Rapha, I stood before this couple and helped them to renew their wedding vows. I saw love in the eyes of the bride as she has gotten back the man she fell in love with. I saw peace and gratitude in the eyes of the groom as he spoke his vows to his wife. A year later, after all the chaos in the life of this couple, God was blessing them with a new life. How cool was that?

Such times and events are payday to me.
Thank you God for your faithfulness.

God on you.....
mb