Ephesians 4:5 talks about one baptism, one God.
At the beginning of September I wrote about forgiving God and my struggle with trusting Him. I was encouraged by how many people read it, commented, and “liked” it. When you get an opportunity to be transparent with people, let alone the Lord, it will give you a new sense of freedom.
Prior to admitting that I had struggled with forgiving God, I felt like I was living a double life in my relationship with the Lord. On the outside, I seemed to have everything together. In reality, I’m a hot mess. I haven’t trusted the Lord in most aspects of my life. The Lord doesn’t call us to be perfect, which is why there is grace.
I sat down to read Ephesians and felt encouraged by the fact that we have grace and peace from the Lord. In that moment I was lead to stand up and worship. I had my headphones on and eyes closed. After a few songs passed, “Washed by the Water” by Needtobreathe came on. If you haven’t heard the song part of the chorus is:
Even when the rain falls,
Even when the floods start rising,
Even when the storm comes,
I am washed by the water.
I felt as though God was singing those words to me. That no matter what happens, He is always by my side. I needed to surrender to Him. The complete and total surrender in my eyes is baptism. It shows that I am completely wiping myself of my sins and fully accepting God as my Savior. That I am willing to follow what He has in store for my life.
That night at dinner I had told my team that I wanted to get baptized. They were all excited for me and we talked about it for the rest of our meal. We had thought that we would get an opportunity the next day since we were going to be by a river. The weather that day was not the best and it started to rain like it did most days this time of year.
I ended up having to wait a few weeks. I felt as though the Lord was teaching me patience. That I couldn’t get what I wanted when I wanted it. So I told my team that I still wanted it to happen while in Honduras, which just so happened to be our travel days.
On our travel days from Honduras to Guatemala we stayed in a hostel by the coast in La Ceiba. It was a great day. My team and I spent the afternoon relaxing and building relationships. We ended up eating at a little restaurant on the beach where we could just jump in the ocean afterward. We all got in the ocean and my team baptized me. I can officially say that as of September 29, 2014 I have been baptized and couldn’t be happier!
One of our squad leaders was with us and recorded it for me, please enjoy!
