It was about a year ago when I was watching a bunch of my teammates and friends be baptized that my wife, Olivia, asked me the question. “You’ve been baptized, right?”
As we cheered for our friends, I thought about it and though my parents had baptized me as a child, I realized I had never made that decision for myself. “I guess not,” I had to tell her. The baptism continued and my heart started racing faster and faster. In my heart I felt God telling me to jump in and I knew I should listen to Him, but I held back. I left that night with the question open in my mind … should I be baptized?
The baseball season started shortly after and my schedule was filled with playing, traveling and other responsibilities, but in the back of my mind the question would occasionally pop up. So a few weeks ago, as I gathered together with a group of Christian brothers and sisters — teammates, friends and many I didn’t know well at all — I began to think, “I’m going to do it.”
I didn’t really think much about who would be baptizing me or how it would be done, but I knew it needed to be done. I needed to obey God’s voice telling me to publicly declare my faith in this way. Deep down I thought it would be really cool to be baptized by a mentor of mine, and of course I wanted Olivia by my side. Then Olivia asked me if I would like to ask Adam Wainwright to be the one to dunk me. I realized this would mean a lot to me. Adam is a great leader on our team and he’s become a great mentor for me, not only in my baseball career but also in my life as a whole. His spiritual influence in my life has been monumental to me. I starting thinking and praying about it and then eventually went to Adam and asked if he would. He immediately got pumped up and said, “Of course!”
As we got in the pool I felt like I could have passed out, my heart was about to beat out of my chest. I knew that this was an act of obedience to God. It was really important for me to enter into the water and come out in His presence, fully committed to Him. In that moment I was letting go of everything else and giving it all to Him.
Having Olivia next to me, while Adam was dunking me, meant everything to me. She’s a huge part of every aspect of my life and having her there with me in that moment, just like every other moment, was incredible.
God’s voice couldn’t have been more clear to me about my need to be baptized. Yes, I was already saved by faith, but I was convicted to publicly display my faith in this way. No longer was I going to allow outside distraction or internal doubt to keep me from being baptized. I didn’t worry about the moment being perfect, because He made it perfect.
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” — Romans 6:3-4
— Luke Weaver, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher
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