More hard objects falling...

Something happened this week that rocked my world...

As a father, my prayer, my hope, my dream is that my sons grow up to love and serve Jesus, my Lord. I certainly had something to do with them getting into this world and all I want is for them to love the Lord and follow Him.

My oldest son became Christian about 6 years ago and I was honored and brought to my knees when he asked me to baptize him.

This week, my youngest son called us from summer camp and gave us some great news...he wants to become a Christian. I can't wait to see him, I am absolutely thrilled about it. That is awesome news, however something else happened that I just want to talk about for a bit.

When he called us he told us on the phone that he had "accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior". First of all, that is quite a mouthfull for my 11-year old...it just seemed surreal for that to be coming out of his mouth. Secondly...what did he just say?!?

Before we knew it (my wife and I were both on the phone) the youth minister was back on the line talking about "scheduling" his baptism.

I'm almost 43 and I know I have a good 3 decades or so of stigmatisms to get through, but after we hung up the phone I found myself wondering (for a few moments)...what have I done? My son just sounded like...like...one of those people that you meet on the street that say they are a Christian and that they just "accepted Jesus into my heart". This wasn't supposed to happen this way...

For 40 years I have heard, understood and believed in 5 steps of salvation (hear, believe, confess, repent, be baptized). In my history the last 3 always come together because they are all (all 5) equally important and necessary for salvation. For about a half a day, I was slightly freaked out. My hope was that when my son got home from camp we could sit down and talk about how his understanding and study together.

It turns out that I was just being parnoid.

True...if my son had been at a "Church of Christ" camp the phone call would have been markedly different. More like..."your son wants to be baptized, do you want to come up to camp or have him wait until Sunday?" Ok, what's the difference?

The big difference is that they would not have taken his confession. Now, I still have not talked to my son face-to-face so I can't say for sure that's what happened, but it sure sounded that way. However, even if they did, it's not a big deal. My wife, my son and I will all get together and talk about this and if my son is ready this Sunday or next Sunday he will confess his sins, repent and be baptized.

On the other hand, I don't think my son would have talked about a personal relationship with the Lord...that's cool...that's really cool.

The moral of this story for me? I still have a lot to learn about my faith and that overcoming 40 years of doing things a specific way will not be accomplished overnight.

Anyway...praise the Lord, my son wants to be a Christian!