A Life Consuming Decision

By the time I reached the eighth grade I was seriously contemplating my relationship with God.   About that time A. A. Berryman came to be our preacher. During the summer he drilled us with passages that supported what we called “the plan of salvation.”  As I recall, any student who memorized them all was awarded a Bible.  I was 13 years old.  It wasn’t cool to admit that you were memorizing Bible verses.  Girls did that.  Nevertheless I was much interested in what was taking place.  I was privately memorizing the verses, but I never recited them for anybody.

I was thinking seriously about being baptized.  Three things caused me to put it off. (1) All the kids my age seemed to be doing it, and I didn’t want to do it just because they did.  (2) My father talked to me about being baptized, and I didn’t want to do it to please him. (3) I knew it represented a commitment to Christ, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to give up my sins.  I wasn’t a rebellious boy in the usual sense of the term.  Most people would have called me a “straight arrow” kid, but I did want to be in control of my life, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to surrender myself to God.   That’s where things were in the summer.

In November two of the most unlikely people in the world talked to me about baptism – Bob Hays and Don Rutledge.   They simply asked me why I didn’t go ahead and do it. I didn’t say anything, which is unusual for me.  Then one of them (I can’t remember which one) said, “He’s not gonna do it.”

Neither one of them knew but that messed with my mind more than anything that had been said to me.  I asked myself, “Have I become so stubborn that I won’t let God in my life?” 

A few years ago Wayne Berryman (A. A. Berryman’s son) sent me a page from his father’s memoirs.   He said that he came to our house and talked to me, and I told him that I would like to be baptized.  I don’t actually recall that conversation, but I’m sure it took place.  I do remember struggling with it during the sermon the next Sunday.  A man named Vurel Vick led the singing.  He led a song that included these lyrics

There’s a fountain free,

Tis for you and me,

From the throne of life now it flows,

While the waters flow,

Let the weary soul

Hear the call that forth freely goes

In the chorus, the question, “Will you come?” is repeated. I didn’t wait for the second “Will you come?”  I was baptized that night because there wasn’t any water in the baptistry that morning.  Vurel was the first to congratulate me.  That was November 15, 1948

Later Vurel became a preacher.  I ran into him at the Pepperdine University Lectures in Malibu, California a few years ago and told him my story.  Of course he didn’t remember it, but I think he was glad I shared it.