Christian life is a walk

The apostle Paul was a genius when he said the Christian life is a race that needs to be run to the end. I was walking home from the shops today and, thinking about the metaphor, decided that it was difficult to push it too far.
The walk I took begins fairly easily with a down hill bit followed by a foot path with patchy shade, after a while you cross a road and there begins a long, steady uphill walk along desert like dirt and rocks with occasional shade. This part seems endless and each time you look up it feels like you are no closer to the goal. Then Suddenly you are at the top and over the bridge and an interesting, shady can be enjoyed with the end in sight.

Christianity, like the walk, has easy, good bits in it, down hills, shade, footpaths. It also has what feels like never ending boringness, hardship, spiritual dryness, lack of energy, what feels like lack of progress. Both of these are good and particularly the less easy parts make you stronger/fitter.

Christianity, like walking, is easier and more pleasant when shared with company. This is why we go to church and bible study, so we don't get discouraged and tired as much. In saying that both Christianity and walking can (and sometimes should) be done without other people with great personal benefit of self discipline.

The Christian walk, like a physical walk, has a goal and a plan and a direction to take. It is good to keep the goal in mind and not to be distracted by attractively interesting and shady looking paths. This is a particular temptation in the dry, hard bits of both walks. If you get distracted it means at best a detour that wastes time and at worst getting lost altogether.

God is like the father who is taking his children for the walk, holding their hands and guiding them. God doesn't mind if we fall over, have a little tantrum, have a little pity party, sit and sulk for a while, as long as we get up and continue to walk. However as every parent knows, tantrums and hissy fits don't solve much, they only waste energy. What God is less pleased about is giving up the walk altogether and being our own boss and taking what looks like the easy option of a car. Initially our way looks better, quicker, easier, but then we finish up like the space people in Wall-E who can't even walk.

Christian life is a walk, pleasant and hard, hot and cold, wet and dry, thirsty and refreshed. The more you do it and practice the stronger you get. Obviously not a perfect metaphor but it can bee pushed pretty far before it becomes inaccurate.

Baptism

Jesus told people to repent and be baptized. A simple enough instruction. The important part of the instruction is the repentance bit, the response to repenting is baptism.

Over the centuries, baptism has developed into a ritual practice and a "ticket to heaven" Today many people believe they are fine to go to heaven because they are good people and they were baptized. Repentance does not figure into it. I have not yet been baptized because of the ticket to heaven business, I originally wanted to unwind people's thinking that Baptism gets you to heaven. It isn't, it doesn't and it never will, Jesus paid our debt and his grace and forgiveness gets us to heaven when we believe we are sinners and he is God and able to forgive.

Some misconceptions about baptism among people include

• It is the way to heaven, once you are baptized you are Christian enough to go to heaven, this is an almost entirely non christian view. Nobody who I know to be a Christian by their lives and words believes this as the bible doesn't support it.
• Baptism is a public declaration of what I believe. Many Godly christians think this but unless I missed the right verse the bible doesn't support this. If it is a public declaration, why can't I get up in church and say I believe Jesus is God and has the power to forgive sins and to raise us from the dead on the last day, that with the help of the Holy Spirit I am striving to live with Jesus as king of my life. That is a public declaration of what I believe, why the water?
• Baptism is a visible demonstration of what I believe (I think that could be worded better). This is getting closer I think to the biblical meaning of baptism. However it still gives more credit to it then is due. My christian daily life should be a visible demonstration of what I believe, a baptism is a bit of a one hit wonder so not really going to do this well.
• Baptism is to encourage other Christian. ??? where does it say that in the bible? It may encourage a christian to see a non christian that they have evangelized come to fully understand what it is to be a christian and to be baptized, but that is not a biblical reason (correct me if I am wrong)

In the bible, simply put, baptism signifies the end of the old life of ignoring God and having myself or another God as ruler of my life and the beginning of having Jesus as king of my life. This makes baptism very important to a convert, one who has come to Jesus from a life openly serving other gods including self. It is to show themselves and their families and friends that they belong to Jesus now and their old life is finished. 

I grew up always believing Jesus is God and he has a right to be king of my life. As I got older I questioned what I believe and decided for myself that yes, Jesus is still king in my life. At no point has there been a stopping of the old life and beginning of a new one, I have simply (by God's grace) grown into my faith and understanding. All the time I am learning but I have never not believed the gospel of Christ. So, do I need to get baptized? I don't believe so. Is it a salvation issue? no. 

Please feel free to POLITELY comment if you have any thoughts or wisdom to add or things I missed.

Pro horse trainer???

After having free access to a horse of my own and practicing all sorts of groundwork tricks on her, I was pretty confident I knew what I was doing regarding groundwork and horses.

Apparently other people thought I knew what I was doing and so I got a phone call to ask if I could teach a pony to go on a float when asked. He had been fine before the people bought him (apparently) but if there was no friend already in the float he would fight energetically to not go on the float. He was pulling the owner all over the place and after 2 hours of effort they decided not to go to pony club.

I agreed and was a bit nervous about trying it on a pony I didn't know WITH PEOPLE WATCHING. Everything went fine and within 1 hour I had had him on and off the float half a dozen times. The first half hour was spent chasing him in the round yard so the actual floating effort only took about 15 minutes. I told the man to try again the next day without me so that if there was going to be a problem it wasn't going to be when they were trying to get somewhere. It went badly so I went and worked with the pony again and showed the man an easier technique to apply discomfort and release accurately regarding obedience and they didn't have a problem again.

I then got invited to pony club to teach some classes to the kids and their ponies about horsemanship and teaching horses new tricks.