By Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, Ph.D.
I have been a Christian for a long time. Well, that is partly true. To be honest, I might have held the title for a long time, but in the early stages of my Christian journey, my walk with Christ was a half-hearted gesture at discipleship. Let me explain.
I was raised by a single-parent father after being abandoned by my mother as a baby— (that is another story for another day). The thing is, my father had a vision of what was truly valuable in life, and he believed that cultivating a relationship with God, was one of those things. And so my sister and I were “churchified” (I made that word up). Even though he was not himself a Christian, dad made sure we went to church regularly: during the summer, we attended a Pentecostal church on Wednesdays; on weekends, throughout the year, we attended a Seventh-day Adventist church on Saturdays; and we attended a Roman Catholic church on Sundays.
At the age of 12, he said to me: “Kathy-Ann, it’s time for you to get baptized!” It was neither a choice nor a suggestion. In true Caribbean parenting style, it was a command. And so, I was baptized, but the act meant very little to me. Earlier, at the age of 9, I had been convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit and felt God’s calling on my life. I had wanted so desperately to be baptized then. It was my first encounter with a love like I had never known before. However, my father felt I was too young and told me to wait. At the age of 12, I was no longer as interested. The secular life, and fitting in with my peers, had already dulled my hunger for spiritual things.
Then in my twenties, I had a coming to myself moment. I got tired of playing “In the River, On the Bank,” with God. I got tired of living in what Johnathan McReynolds calls “shades of gray”—going to church but having my fete and party life on the side too. I decided to go “all in” with God and was rebaptized. I tell you this to show you that my walk with God has, and continues to have, many twists and turns. It has not been a straight path. It has been messy. What is more, if there is one thing I have learned through it all, it is this: messy is just the nature of the discipleship journey for all of us.
Along the path of discipleship, we will fail God. We will fail people close to us. And we will fail ourselves as we try to get this Christian walk right.
Here’s the thing though–none of us are immune from the messiness of the Christian walk. Like Peter, we do the things we said we would never do, not once, not twice, but sometimes again and again (Luke 22:54-62). Insert your name here. Then we find ourselves, like Peter (Matthew 26:75), like David (Psalm 51), like Abraham (Genesis 12 & 20), and like the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), at the feet of a merciful and loving God asking for forgiveness. This is the Christian life.
And yet, here is God saying to us: “Bring all the messiness of your ‘sometimes on,’ ‘sometimes off,’ “watery” kind of love to me.” The invitation that He is so graciously extending to us is to be our faithful companion as we learn to “do life” together with Him.
I don’t know what your story is or how you came into the faith, but here is God extending the invitation to you with all your messiness and brokenness, saying “Come, I got you!” Will you accept His invitation?
