On Sunday March 4th, 2018, I was baptized at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church by Pastor Kemp.
Before I go into further detail about my baptism, there are a few important things I should say about my journey first.
For those who don’t know me, I was an atheist up until April 2014. The reasons why I was an atheist is a story for another day. God reached out to me on a random day when I was passing up First United Methodist Church and long story short, I met Pastor Shannon Patterson. She talked to me for awhile, gave me her personal engraved Bible (which I still have), showed me around the church and invited me to that Sunday’s service. I took Shannon up on her offer, started attending church, and soon ended up at an evening Bible study with a group of women.
Even though God had reached out to me and made it clear where I needed to be, my belief that I wasn’t good enough for God led to me being very inconsistent. I wanted to learn about God, the Bible and what being a Christian was all about but I believed that I really didn’t have a place anywhere near God.
My presence in the church was short lived because I moved to San Antonio, Texas that August. I had been planning to attend the University of Texas at San Antonio for a while and was excited to leave, but the church made me want to stay. I really enjoyed the people I had come to know inside the church and how welcome they made me feel despite my imperfect attendance.
Once I started attending UTSA, I told myself that I was going to grow in my faith and not do anything that pushed me away from God. There were certain things that I thought you couldn’t do if you were going to be a Christian so I tried very hard not to do them. It turns out that growing in your faith by yourself is quite a challenge especially when you don’t know a thing about the Bible, God, or how to be a Christian. I had multiple apps on my phone to help with my walk in Christ but it didn’t really seem to help answer the questions I had. I soon attempted to find a church that was like the one I attended back home in Georgia and that was extremely difficult; turns out none of them made me feel welcome, so going to church was out of the question.
If it wasn’t for my supposed to be roommate, again a story for another day, I wouldn’t have discovered an on campus ministry called Young Life. I had heard of them before but I didn’t know what or who they were. Young Life was just where I needed to be. My Tuesday evenings were now filled with fun, fellowship, and of course, God. Again, I became involved in a study group with a group of wonderful women and I enjoyed it. It was at Young Life where I met my close friend who I soon went broke with (I know there’s so many, but another story for another day).
My attendance at Young Life became short lived because I still felt like I had to be a certain way for God and I was the complete opposite. I truly loved Young Life, the people in it and what they were doing, but my insecurity in my relationship with God pushed me away yet again.
It might be hard for people to understand how you push yourself away from God because you’re not “good enough” but for someone who didn’t know a thing about being a true Christian, it’s very easy. It’s very easy for someone who has little to no foundation as a Christian to be unable to see the power of Christ. At the time, I didn’t even consider myself a Christian, I never did — I just knew that I believed in God because there was no denying that He reached out to me.
For two years, I didn’t place myself in any situation to grow in my faith. I say that because God had already carefully placed me in two situations where I could grow but I removed myself from them, which means it is now my fault. At this point I had become so far gone from the person I wanted to be that I felt like there was no turning back for me, I might as well continue down my slow path of recklessness.
Looking back, I was never too far from God; I still prayed, read the Bible and even read some devotionals here and there but there was no denying that I could have been incredibly closer to God than I was. There’s no other way to put it than to say that the distance between God and I was all my fault. I knew where I was supposed to be and thanks to His grace, it wouldn’t take long for me to get back.
The spring of 2016 was incredibly rough for me, I was going through a lot and life was hitting me hard. While driving back to my apartment sometime that May, I was incredibly upset in my car having a conversation with God. This was the turning point in it all. I had a very short but focused talk with God; I told Him that I didn’t know what He was doing, but I trusted what He was doing. I never really asked God for anything in the past, I never quite felt okay with asking God for anything but this time I just had one request. I told God that I needed Him to give me peace, love and happiness. That’s it. That’s all I wanted and needed. It’s really cliche, right? But when you’re lacking all of that, what else can you ask for.
I didn’t really know how I was going to get my peace, love and happiness, all that I knew was that I desperately needed it. Little did I know that God was going to give me that in the form of a person. It’s really crazy because I never asked for a person but God works in funny ways. Only a few days after that I met Jackson. Neither of us were looking for anything but here we are almost 2 years later.
If you’re wondering what a guy has to do with my walk in faith then keep reading. There were little things that made me realize he was the answer to my prayer. Jackson was doing things that were slowly bringing me back closer to God. Now to be clear, it wasn’t like I met Jackson and then overnight God became my best friend. I was learning things that I hadn’t learned before about God, the Bible, being a Christian and just being a better person in general.
All my problems didn’t disappear overnight and it wasn’t until my birthday in October that God showed me nothing I was doing up to that night was really for me. People who know me thought Jackson was the reason I underwent a change and it wasn’t him at all. Yes, I did learn a lot from being with him up until that point but it was 110% God’s doing. That turning point was all because of God and at that point in time my eyes were closed, after God shook me up I can say I was probably squinting.
Fast forward to 2017.
I had taken a semester off to get myself together considering everything that happened and my situation. My plan was to work full time then go back to school — keyword: my plan. It didn’t necessarily work out the way I thought it would because my full time job turned into a part time job even though I had full time bills.
God carried me through all of that and then put me back on the path I was meant to be on. Throughout the year of 2017 God was doing incredible things with my life, I just had to let go and let God, literally. Throughout that time Jackson was answering all my questions about anything and everything, we were having our own Bible study and watched a few movies based from the Bible. Eventually we started going to church regularly but it wasn’t enough. We needed to join the church, because I needed more to grow in my faith.
Jackson joined the church a week before I did but we still attended the same new members class which is required in order to join the church. During the orientation I was told that being baptized is part of your walk in Christ and although it was something strange to me since all of this was still fairly new, I knew I should do it. I’m not very expressive about my love for God, but I did know I felt like I was a closeted Christian and I wanted to walk in the light; I didn’t know what it really, really meant but I knew that’s how I felt.
Fast forward to my baptism.
My baptism had been planned for the first Sunday in March because that’s when my father was coming home and he wanted to be there for it. The morning of I was incredibly nervous, I was so nervous that I was shaking.
After my baptism, I felt so much better about myself in general and as a Christian. It was like instant gratification and my eyes opened. It also helped that not only were my parents and Jackson there but his parents drove down from Houston to attend.
I’m incredibly happy that God reached out to me, has carefully placed me where I am and I am now a proud Christian.
Thank you to Shannon Patterson and First United Methodist for welcoming me with warm and open arms into their church for that small but incredibly important amount of time.
Thank you to Stephanie and the Young Life family for all that y’all have done during my short and memorable time with you all.
Thank you to my friends who have all supported me through whatever it may be.
Thank you to Jackson and all of his family for showing me so much that I needed to see in order to grow in my faith.
Thank you to the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church for welcoming me with open arms and walking with me in Christ.
A huge thank you to my family for the endless support, love and encouragement through any and everything.
Of course, the biggest thank you to God. Words will never express my love and amazement for my God.
Ezekiel 36:26