Prepared for Baptism

I'm not even close to the "finish line" of parenting, where you send your kid off and sit back to watch them spread their wings.  That day is still a ways away for all of my children. But there are questions that haunt me in anticipation of that milestone: Did I teach them enough?  Did I give them everything they needed?  Did I do enough?  Do they have all the tools they need to be okay?

I felt some of that harrowing responsibility last week as I watched my son on his baptism day.

He's only 8, so yes, there's plenty of teaching left to do under my watch & the watch of my husband.

But while he is young, our son is already at an impressionable, critical, and forming stage of his life. The choices he makes now really will start to affect the person he's going to turn out to be. As he has chosen to get baptized, I wondered: Did we teach him everything he needs to truly understand this commitment?  Does he know what it means to really follow Jesus Christ?  Sometimes following the commandments and understanding the gospel can feel so complex and overwhelming at times--does he know what it takes?

But then I realized - I have taught him everything he needs to know.  The implications of being baptized and confirmed are actually quite simple.

There is really only ONE rule, and that is to LOVE JESUS.  If you can LOVE the Lord, you can follow Him.  When you love God, you TURN TO HIM, and turning to the Lord is truly the answer to everything my son will need.  

He was ready for this.  He knows that there is only one name whereby man can be saved in Heaven.  He is already putting the gospel in action in his life.  He's trying to follow the commandments and be like Jesus would want him to be - he's not perfect at it, but none of us are.  We all need the Lord's grace.  He's already working on obtaining the word, and he's trying to apply it.

The gospel of Jesus Christ really is simple enough that a child can understand it.  It's the adults in this world who muddy it up and make it more complex than it needs to be.  The only thing we need to do is follow Jesus & turn to Him.  And last Saturday, that is what Tyson chose to do.  He followed the example of Jesus Christ, and he was baptized. 

It was a beautiful day.  I felt the Spirit at Tyson's baptism and it made me feel closer to the Lord, too.