Three Word Wednesday :: Our Salvation Comes

Cate was baptized this past Sunday – about three weeks after she decided to on the shores of a foreign country to follow Jesus with this gesture. Greg had the honor of baptizing her in front of our best friends and some family members in our church, where Cate has heard so much about this God we prayed for her to believe in.

We celebrated afterward by singing “Days of Elijah,” a praise song she chose. Honestly, I thought it was unusual song to celebrate a baptism, but as we were singing it, I realized it was perfect:

“Out of Zion’s hills salvation comes … There’s no God like Jehovah.”

We came back to our house and shared a taco lunch with the people closest to us. They’re the ones who do life with us on a nearly daily basis. They’re the ones who have helped us teach our kids about Jesus.

Many times, people can pinpoint the moment they decided to follow Jesus and recall where they were when they decided to get baptized. But, really, salvation comes as a process.

I think about my own story. Like any high schooler, I was searching for identity and trying to make sense of life. The questions abounded, leading the conversations with friends. Then God led me to Romans 8:28:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

It was not long afterward, when I was away from my friends and family at a Chrysalis weekend that I took that first step toward really following Jesus. That was more than 19 years ago. First steps are important. But the ones that follow become our stories. {Tweet that.}

Likewise, God had been working on Cate’s heart long before we got to Guatemala, but it was there God wove together all he had been doing and made her need for Jesus clear. Her decision to be baptized was the perfect ending to our mission trip. Her actual baptism was a moment that will be etched in her story forever. But all of that was just the beginning to what else God has for her.

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