This past summer, I had the totally cool opportunity to baptize my son. Because I live in San Diego and it’s pretty much warm year-round (and because we have that big thing near us called the Pacific Ocean), my church does our baptisms at the beach. It’s almost like a church picnic three times a year: There’s tons of food, laughter and beach stuff; but when it comes time for the actual baptism part, those who are ready wade out into the water and line up in front of various pastors. Family members and those who lead them to Christ join them, and it’s all a big Jesus-y party.

When we pulled our car into the parking lot, Max, my 12-year-old son, started crying. This surprised my wife and me because he’d been pretty pumped about this day. We sat with him in the car for a while and tried to figure out what was causing him concern. After a while, he was able to verbalize something like this: “I want to do this, but I’m not sure I want to let God make all my decisions. I want to partner with God.” He actually said partner, which I thought was pretty articulate for a sixth grader.

I frantically was interchanging my dad hat with my junior high youth worker hat, back and forth, trying to figure out the right thing to say. Then Max said, “I hope this doesn’t make you mad, Dad, but I don’t think I want to be a pastor like you.”

After we cleared up the idea that getting baptized didn’t mean he had to become a pastor (!), we had a great discussion about how God made him unique and loves his uniqueness. God wants to partner with him, too! We affirmed Max’s sixth-grade understanding of what it means to live as a Christ-follower. Then we got on with the baptism.

Flash forward to a few weeks ag Max went on our church’s middle school winter retreat (I wasn’t there). When he came home, we were talking about the weekend, and he said, “Remember how I said I wanted to partner with God and didn’t want Him to make all my decisions? Well, this weekend I realized that [because] God made me and knows me better than I know myself, making the decisions that He wants me to make is really the best thing I can do.”

I asked, “Is that something you heard the speaker say?”

He said, “No, it’s something I realized when we were talking in our cabin.”

Wow. First of all I just have to say, I thank God that Max has other caring adults in his life who can have these conversations with him. This is such a great snapshot of early adolescent faith development. This 12-year-old kid who wants to live a life of faith is slowly waking up to what it all means. He’s churning it over in his mind and heart, watching other people of faith (his parents and youth group leaders); and the Holy Spirit is forming him.

He’s getting it—he’s developing a faith of his own. It might not show up at every moment (Really, does ours?), but he’s “growing in wisdom and stature.” This, my junior high youth worker friends, is why we do this. This is our calling: to patiently wait, speak, respond, be present, trust that God is doing a great thing and patiently wait some more.