So in six days I'll be getting baptized. June 22nd 2008 at the 6pm service for Buckhead Church. I'm so excited, even if it did take like 10 tries to get my video right.
Now my goal over the next 6 days leading up to my baptism is to blog about some christian experience or some other related experience in my past. This idea was actually my buddy Kris's, so I've got to give him props for challenging me.
Now if I think back, way back I can remember doing wednesday night dinner at College Parkway Baptist Church. We would all gather for some home cooked meal prepared by the mothers and fathers in the church. Stuff like hamburgers, or hot dogs, or even pork chops and meat loaf. Once dinner was over the kids would go off and do our thing while the adults would have some form of worship / bible study.
I can remember one night we had our little group bible study, my first small group I guess you could say, and we played a game. The game was simple. We all sat in a circle with one poor kid in the middle. Guess who the kid was? Yep I was the one in the middle. So here I am sitting in the middle of all my friends, absolutely clueless as to what's about to happen to me.
After we had settled down the leader pulled out a big blanket and covered me up. So I'm sitting in a circle, covered with a blanket. The leader then proceeds with the following:
Eric are you ok under there?
Yes
You can breath ok, and it's not too hot?
No it's not hot yet and I'm breathing fine
Ok I'm going to ask you a single question which doesn't require you to say an answer but does require you to DO something. Understand?
Yea I think so.
Ok, Eric you currently have something on which you do not need. Please take it off and put it outside the circle.
So you're young and posed with this question what do you take off? Me I choose my shoes, I figured I could walk around in socks and be ok. So after taking my shoes off and tossing them out the leader said to me again "You currently have something on which you do not need. Please take it off and put it outside the circle." Fine I take off my socks and put them out. Then he says it again and I remove my belt. Still he keeps saying this. Panic starts to set in because I'm done with my easy stuff and the next thing is for me to remove my shirt or pants and something told me that wasn't what he meant.
So I sat there thinking really really hard. I started to get a little frustrated and began tapping my head like some cartoon character going "think think think". I could hear my friends all starting to giggle as they placed bets on whether I would toss out my pants or my shirt next. Oooo if only I could see their faces I might be able to .......DOH! It was at that moment and at that half a thought I realized what I had ON which I didn't need.
The blanket.
So I took the blanket off and tossed it to the side. My leader smiled and then asked me if I knew the meaning behind this. Couple of more minutes pondering (no head tapping this time) and I came up with this.
"We all have something in our life we don't need. Something which is holding us back and preventing us from moving forward. In this case it was the blanket but in life it could be something else"
My leader smiled and he then asked "And what is it that we should be moving towards?" This was an easy one for me. I mean we were in church so I quickly shoot off "God". Which was correct and exactly what he expected me to say.
So what is it in your life which is preventing you from moving forward in your relationship with God?
Recent Comments