The Pebble

Some sink fast.
Some float first.
But all whom God draws — sink.

Baptism is not a gesture.
It is a burial.
As it is written:
“We were buried with Him through baptism into death.”

The surface does not hold what belongs to Christ.
The old self dies,
and the descent begins.

Sanctification is not ascent,
but submersion.
Not elevation, but erosion.
Not progress, but death.

A pebble makes no decision to sink.
It is thrust into the water and pulled downward by what it is —
by the law of weight, of gravity, of design.

So it is with the soul truly regenerated by God.

Some are broken swiftly.
Their descent is immediate.
The water takes them without pause,
and they disappear beneath the surface as if they were always meant to be buried.

Others are not pebbles.

They are leaves.

They linger.
They resist the pull.
Their descent is not a plunge, but a soaking.

The surface tension holds — for a time.
They resist the pull.
The Spirit will not permit it.

The leaf does not choose to absorb the water.
It is its nature to do so once touched.
And once soaked, it sinks.

So it is with all who belong to Christ:
They sink.

None stay on the surface forever.

The surface is for the dead —
for those who live by sight,
by feeling, by control.

But those crucified with Christ are drawn under.
Slowly or suddenly, they vanish from the air above.

Because at the bottom lies the garden.

Burial brings fruit.
Death to self brings life in the Spirit.
This is where sanctification takes root —
not in comfort or clarity, but in surrender.
Not in self-driven obedience, but in Spirit-driven descent.

God does not plant in the shallows beneath the surface —
He grows His people deep.

The surface breaks.
The descent begins.
And there, below, is where true life begins.