A blessing from God...

In 2002 I was blessed of God to go to England for 3 weeks. I went with a group from SWBTS. We studied Baptist history, and toured many of the important sites of Baptist history. I was so blessed, and refreshed by that trip. I often look back upon it as a blessing from God. As I write this post, a group from SWBTS is in Oxford enjoying the time of their life. I wish them as wonderful a trip as I had. I also would like to say, that I am jealous of them as well. I wish that I could go back.

My most poignant memory of the trip was on our day trip to Tewksbury. We stopped our coach, and walked a few blocks, turned left down a little cobblestone alley; where we saw the oldest surviving Baptist church in the World. We went inside and lifted up the old boards covering the baptistry, when Dr. Leon McBeth began to tell the story of how the congregants of the church would meet at night in order to not be found out. He told us how they were considered dissenters that could and would be punished for their beliefs. He recounted how those devout believers in believers baptism by immersion would line up and form a bucket brigade, from the Cherwell river a hundred yards away; so as to fill the baptistry bucket by bucket. He then recounted how they would form that same line to empty the baptistry as well. I remember thinking, "Wow, these people took baptism, and the faith so seriously."

I later realized that there were countless others that struggled and even gave their lives for the faith. It inspired me to take faith seriously. We do not deal with pebbles when we think about and communicate our faith. We are dealing with jewels set in casings of gold. Our faith, our savior, our God, our commission; are all precious. They are more precious than anything. We should treat them as such.