When I was six or seven years old, I was baptized in our Baptist church in Nashville, Tennessee. I was really moved by this, and wanted everyone I knew to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I might have taken it a little too far, though.
The following summer at the neighborhood pool, I was playing with two of my friends; one of whom was Jewish. I asked her if she wanted to go to Heaven. She said yes. I asked her did she believe Jesus Christ was our Savior? She said she didn’t know, she had never heard of Him. You can only imagine what this did to my young, seven year old, Baptist heart. I said, “I can’t let you die and not accept Jesus Christ as your Savior!” She must have said, “Okay,” because the next thing we did was to get out of the pool and head over to the baby pool.
You see, I was only tall enough to stand in the three feet section. I had to swim around the rest of the pool. Clearly I needed to be able to stand tall in order to do what I felt needed to be done.
We went over to the baby pool where I proceeded to baptize my Jewish friend. My mother, sitting nearby reading, looked up in horror just as I was dunking my friend in the water, telling her, “I baptize you my sister, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Rise now and walk!”
My mom immediately said something to my Jewish friend’s mother sitting nearby, who thankfully, was not offended. But my mom had an extremely stern talk with me about time and place, and how it was not my place to baptize my friend. “But I don’t want her to spend eternity in hell,” I told my mom.
I can only imagine the potpourri of emotions my mother had to feel that day. I know I was a handful, and this could have had a terrible outcome, had our neighbor not had a laid back response to her daughter being “baptized” by the little Baptist girl in the neighborhood.
My heart then and my heart now desperately wants to see lives changed for His Kingdom. But I cannot change someone’s mind by arguing with them. I want to see renewal and revival across our globe. I don’t want to see Christians raising fists to one another and fighting and causing discord. I don’t want to see name calling, or defending any type of name calling.
I decided last week to delete my Facebook app for a while. I will only use this page to share my devotions from my website, as I continue to search my heart and seek God’s guidance as we walk through this world consumed with so much anger and hurt.
I fear we have come to a point scripture warned us about, and we are not doing enough as lovers of Jesus to change things. “But mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” - 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (NIV)
The hurt and anger felt across our entire globe is justified. We desperately need change. But I found myself feeling the “need” to share my political opinions more than sharing my love for Jesus. This was a wakeup call for me. I need to care far more about inviting people into His Kingdom than inviting them to a debate.
Just as it was not my place to baptize my Jewish friend when we were little girls, it is not my place now to try and sway someone’s political opinions to align with my own. I can only pray for us, as a nation, to seek God’s Word, more than seeking accolades for our snarky political debates.
Donald Trump is temporary. Joe Biden is temporary. Jesus is permanent.
I care far more people know me for loving and supporting Jesus than any candidate who falls short of the praise and admiration Jesus so richly deserves.