For you were buried with Christ when you were Baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 

—Colossians 2:12

Last year, I was watching a television show that followed the life of a character whose life was marred by bad luck mixed in with bad decisions. The last few episodes chronicled his attempts at finding inner peace; which included him running away to start a new life, sparking a new love interest, and even enrolling in a therapeutic rehabilitation center. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to work for him. Finally, during the last episode of the season, the character found himself an ocean, submerged himself under its influence, and then rose up from the water as a regenerated version of himself. I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s like baptism.” Many people believe baptism to be just a meaningless ritual, but it’s obviously (intended to be) more than that to the one getting baptized. While watching that scene in the show, I couldn’t help but ask myself: “Is that even a thing? Can a person even get baptized with no traditional ceremonialism; no nothing?” I had no one around to pose those questions to, so I put a pin in my thoughts and left them as is. (It was a great show btw.)

Then, fast forward to last week sometime, I was listening to a sermon from T. D. Jakes and he was talking about the healing properties of water. He closed the sermon by acknowledging how many physical locations of churches have been shut down, but that doesn’t mean our connections with God have to shut down as well. He encouraged listeners to find an ocean or any body of water and to get baptized. That’s when I realized it could really be true: At any given moment, anyone can choose to walk into regeneration by symbolically participating in the act of baptism. The Bible verse above compares it to being “buried” like Christ, and “raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God.” It’s an amazing thing to be able to have control over one’s own reset button. All anyone has to do is be serious about deciding to start over. No matter where we are, we can start afresh, start anew, and even make it official by baptizing ourselves in water.

Lots of Love, XO