Timothy Kline: Thoughts and Reflections

Take of life's waters free

I first became familiar with the Bible when I was very young, as far back as my memory will carry me. I remember the large, oversized ivory-colored family Bible on the table in front of the sofa, with its holographic picture embedded into the cover, a portrait of a long-haired Jesus that would shift to another picture where Jesus was standing at a door and knocking.

I remember pulling back that thick cover to reveal the pages, and I remember being captivated by the pages of red-letter text on many of the pages toward the back of the Bible. I was too young at the time to read, so it was the coloring that first grabbed my attention. That, and the utterly beautiful illustrations that had been placed throughout that Bible.

I remember staring into those pictures for the longest time, taking in the exquisite attention to detail. A whole story unfolded from each singular moment captured on canvas. Some were joyous, others were evidence of despair; yet all of them together constituted my first impressions of the book that so many hold dear: The Holy Bible.

In time, I learned to read, as children often do. I remember unmeasured hours poring through the pages of a series of books called “The Bible Stories,” published by the Seventh-Day Adventists. I was living in Lake Odessa, Michigan, at the time, and apparently, the Seventh-Day Adventists–who were based in Battle Creek–were going door-to-door selling their various books which included Ellen G. White’s thick volumes of exposition about the Bible, the aforementioned Bible Story books, and the Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories collection, which were stories with a moral or lesson to be learned. That was around the same time that my mother purchased a complete set of World Book Encyclopediae.

The Bible Stories collection was a remarkable piece of work and in many ways it still is. The artwork is stunning, and the writing level makes for very accessible reading to a wide range of ages. They capsulized much of what I had always been drawn to in that family Bible. I learned about Creation, and Adam and Eve, as well as the story of Cain and his brother Abel. I learned about the Flood and a righteous man named Noah. I learned about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were the founders of a great nation called Israel. And, of course, I learned about David, Solomon, and Daniel. Not to be forgotten were the stories about Jesus and the men who believed what he taught about God’s Kingdom, men who faced hatred from their own people yet stayed the course in order to teach others about Jesus and the promise of God’s Kingdom.

Of course, the more I learned, the more questions I asked. A lot of them, apparently, because my mother decided that attending church as the answer (at least for her, because she was an agnostic and had no interest in all that “religious” stuff.

The first church I attended was the Nashville Baptist Church, in Nashville, Michigan. It was their Sunday School, to be more specific. The bus would come by early on Sunday morning and pick me and my brothers up and take us–along with a few neighborhood kids–off to Sunday School. There, I learned how to look up verses in the Bible, the books of the Bible, and how to read the accounts in the Bible straight from the source rather than from books like The Bible Stories. It was a lot different, reading raw text and having to visualize things, and I would often summon up the imagery from the books and use them as a foundation, and fill in the details from there using the Bible.

Of course, Sunday School also included child-friendly sermons on such subjects as being “saved,” who Jesus was, baptism, and other niceties. But it was all taught at a level that matched the comprehension of children, and I was one of the few that seemed to appreciate it while other kids fidgeted and found pageflipping to be a worthwhile distraction.

One particular memory that I still have to this day is that of a challenge that was presented to my Sunday School class. We were to memorize the 23rd Psalm, and in exchange for our hard work we would receive our choice of 1) a fishing pole; 2) a gift certificate to some restaurant; or 3) a metallic cross, in either silver or red, on a chain necklace. Each subsequent Sunday, one of us boys would take our turn at the recitation. The Sunday School teacher would help the person when they faltered, until the Psalm was recited. Afterwards, the boy would be given his choice, and upon making his decision, the reward was given.The majority of the boys chose the fishing pole, probably because it was the most expensive “prize” being offered.

When my turn came up, a few weeks later, I blushed and stammered and stuttered my way through it. It was harder than I had imagined it would be–my first evidence that I did not have the gift of public speaking, that’s for sure! But I muddled my way through the ordeal, I was asked to make my choice and I timidly said that I wanted the cross necklace. Several of the boys snickered because a necklace was considered a sissy’s prize, but the Sunday School instructor ignored the snickers and asked me if I had a preference for color: the silver or the red. I said that I wanted the red one, because it represented for me the shed blood that Jesus gave up that I might live forever. The instructor told me that I would receive my prize the following Sunday School, because he had only brought the fishing pole and gift certificate with him, since those were the only ones everyone seemed interested in.

Sure enough, the following Sunday I was handed a small gift box, and inside it was the metallic red-colored cross hanging from its lightweight chain necklace. I wasted no time in putting it on; I didn’t care what the other boys were whispering and giggling about, and I wore it all of the time. I was very proud of that piece of jewelry, because deep within my heart I knew what it represented to me, and that was all that mattered.

That same morning, the instructor also handed me my very first personal Bible, a red-leather King James Version, complete with Jesus’s words in red text. It became my companion for a very long time.

That summer, the church pastor was arranging for baptisms to be carried out at the Jordan Lake in Lake Odessa, and inviting the public to the sermon that would be given before the baptisms were performed. Without hesitation, I made up my mind to be one of those who were baptised.

The day arrived, and it was a perfect day. The air was warmed by a slight breeze, the lake was welcoming the crowd with its gentle wake upon the beach. The pastor spoke from one of the pontoons, and when he was finished, he invited all who wanted to be baptized to step forward. I was one of the dozen or so who stepped forward, and if memory serves me correctly, only one of three children.

I won’t soon forget how warm the water was that day. It was like entering a bathtub. The breeze that had been blowing earlier was now stilled, as if the whole world was watching this scene of people getting baptized in Jordan Lake, myself included.

I was led out into the water with the person holding my hand and arm to give me stability. When we were out to the proper depth, the person asked me if I accepted Jesus as my savior and had repented of my former sins and was dedicating my life to serving God. I told him yes, and he told me to pinch my nose closed, and that he would be tipping me backwards into the water until I was fully submerged. I did as instructed, and a few pounding heartbeats later I felt myself plunged beneath the waters of Jordan Lake. All sound went muffled as I found myself in a state of sudden weightlessness. And then, just as suddenly I was raised back up.

It was an immensely powerful moment in my life, one of those moments when I felt closest to God. It had such a deeply spiritual impact that I now look back at it with a sense of appreciation that I could never have had before now. In that moment of my coming up out of those waters, at the tender age of seven, I felt renewed to such a degree that I think the majority of people could never possibly relate to. From being that young tyke who was first drawn to the family Bible, to having access to the Bible Stories books, to Sunday School at the Nashville Baptist Church, it all played a role in my life, in establishing a foundation upon which I would build my Life. That moment when I rose up from those waters, I felt such a sense of being clean and approved and alive! I felt, dare I say, the very presence of God’s holy spirit. It was a comfort beyond the words of a seven year old, but no less real.

Years later, there would come a time when some would try to belittle that experience and convince me that it meant nothing, that that moment when I said without reservation that yes, I did accept Jesus as my savior, that I did repent of my sins and that I did choose to serve God with my whole heart, mind, and spirit–that that moment amounted to little more than a lie.

But the reality of what happened to me the day I was baptized at the age of seven, the witness that was borne to me by my God when I was but a child yearning to learn about Him, could not so easily be undermined. To this day, it stands as a testament to my profound tenacity, even as a child, to take the need I have for God in my life to be as serious–if not more so–than anything else. And it was not an experience that was duplicated at my second baptism many years later, a baptism that I underwent at the behest of those who insisted that my earlier baptism was insufficient and invalid. But I will touch upon that more in a future entry.

In any event, in spite of the learning, probing, and questioning that went on up to that day at Jordan Lake, the day of my baptism proved to be only the beginning for me in my ongoing quest for insight and understanding about myself, others around me, and about the God that I serve and worship.