I had a peculiar dream a few nights ago that I just can’t shake. In it, I was in my back yard during the summertime, hanging with many people whom I know to be Christians. It was hot, so I decided to set up two kiddie pools. One was a small wading pool of about 9 inches in height and the other is large enough to hold 3-4 bodies.
Here in our neck of the woods, it’s a common hot day practice to sit in lawn or bag chairs chairs and place only our bare feet in the cool water of those low level kiddie pools.
When it comes to knowing Christ, are you all the way in? Or are you just testing the waters?
In this particular dream, most everyone wanted to do that instead of getting into the bigger pool where they would would be fully submerged in the water.
But there was one lone dissenter. There always is, isn’t there?
“You might as well get all the way in,” she said as she got into the bigger pool. My immediate thought was, “good golly, everyone else is fine with the other pool, why make me set up the other one just for you?”
Admittedly, that’s my standard reaction for things like that. Frustrated, but still wanting my guest to feel comfortable and welcome, I set up the other pool too.
I can recall little else of the dream, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that this is could be a great illustration of our Christian lives and our willingness to know and serve God.
That I may know Him. ~ Philippians 3:10
In roughly 2005, I worked through the J. Sidlow Baxter devotional Awake, My Heart: Daily Devotional Studies for the Year. In one of his devotions, he talks about Christians and how they sometimes think the know Christ, but we must question if we are “all the way in” or if we are merely cooling ourselves from the heat but putting only our feet in the water. The ultimate longing of a Christian heart is to know Christ personally and intimately.
As Baxter says:
I sometimes fear that despite all our busy Christian service, our attending meetings and conventions, our singing hymns, and our outward Christian activities, some of us, even though we are truly trusting on the finished work of Calvary for our salvation, may find, when we pass into the Beyond, that we don’t know Jesus Himself – having so neglected the secret tryst with Christ down here that we find ourselves strangers to Him there.
So, what’s keeping you out of the deeper waters? Are you all the way in?