Come To The Water Like A Child

I was in it too. I can’t tell you how I got there; I just knew that there was a beach and a whole ocean before me, and I couldn’t help myself.

“I’ll roll my pant legs up,” I called back to my astonished father.

I was looking at the water, all right– looking at it, smelling it, tasting it, lost in gleeful admiration of the miracle of the water. So were my siblings. So were my bad cousins. We were all frolicking, fully clothed, in the waves. The water was higher than our knees; it tugged on our rolled-up pant legs until they unrolled into the ocean.

“You’re all RUINING your CLOTHES!” protested my father.

I didn’t understand why he always said that– when I ran outside in the rain, when I splashed in puddles, when I jumped in the wading pool in my socks. Why did grown-ups not know that clothes were waterproof? They went into the washing machine and came out whole, didn’t they? Water didn’t ruin clothes. Water was good for clothes. If you didn’t put them in water regularly, they weren’t clean enough to wear. Yet, if I got them wet while they were on my body, my father my father would inevitably claim that I was ruining my clothes. Grown-ups made no sense at all.

I don’t know who had the bucket first. I just know that, at some point, there was a plastic bucket lying on the beach, and one of my Bad Cousins was using it to pour water onto somebody’s back. Then I had the bucket. Then someone else had the bucket. Then the original water-thrower was splashed, and another Bad Cousin cried “the joke’s on you!”

This made me think of a bad joke about “the yolk’s on you,” and the next thing I knew, the bucket was full of soaked sand, and then the sand was on the Bad Cousin’s brand new shirt and I was screaming “it’s eggs! It’s rotten eggs!”

Then came the free-for-all where we threw wet sand on one another and claimed it was spoiled food. We were all thoroughly drenched from head to toe, our hair and new clothing glistening with sand.

Next thing we knew, my father was screaming. We were marched back to the beach house in disgrace– though none of us could say what it was we did.

This is the chief difference that I have observed between grown-ups and children: grown-ups “walk down to look at the water.” Children run into water. Grown-ups admire the aesthetics of water. Children pour buckets on one another and scream “It’s rotten eggs!” Grown-ups know the value of water, intellectually; they use it in moderation, to launder clothing and brew nasty beverages. But they balk at a good thorough soaking. Children are the opposite; they can’t resist getting soaked, and don’t see the use of coffee.

The Lord would have us be children.

The Lord came Himself as a child. He lived for years as a child. And at the beginning of His ministry as a grown man, He went down to the Jordan and waded right in. His holy forerunner John was puzzled– “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But the Lord insisted. The Forerunner got in there with Him and poured water over His head. And the clouds opened up, and the Holy Ghost descended, and the Father was well pleased. The waters of the earth were purified by that sign, so that we might obtain cleansing and healing of sins– but only if we dare to wade into the water. There won’t be healing for the ones who stand back and admire. The healing is not on the shore. The healing is in the water.

It’s impossible to be a grown-up in the Presence of the Lord. In order to enter the Presence, you have to be a child; you have to run headlong into the water, with no thought for your new clothes or you shoes. They’ll all be stripped from you anyway, in the end. There’ll be nothing left but you, the water and the Lord, and the Lord is in the water.

Come down with me, to the water. No, don’t stop and look. That’s not what water’s for. You have to give up being a grown-up, and worrying about your clothes. Be a child. Run in. Ruin your clothes. See? Christ is in there already. The Servant of God is waiting to pour water on you, but you have to get in the water first. The Holy Ghost is going to come down from Heaven, but the Holy Ghost can’t descend on you if you’re not in the water. The Angel of the Lord will trouble the waters and heal us of all our infirmities, but we have the be in the water when he does. There’s no healing for the people on the shore.

You cannot stand back and admire the water.

You have to be a child, and get in.

(image via pixabay)