Thinking About Jesus More than Myself

Two weeks ago during our evening family worship time,  Joel made the decision to follow Jesus.  For as long as Joel has been able to express his thoughts, his spiritual insight has been pretty profound.  Up until now, he has always said he wasn't ready to committ to following Jesus.  We tried not to pressure him, and his reasoning was pretty clear, I'm not ready, yet.  I will when I'm ready. 

We were discussing milestones from previous years and recording what God has done in our family in the last couple of years.  As we re-read these milestones we discussed when the other children made this important decision.  Joel said, well, how about I do that tonight. 

We asked him what that means and he said, "It means thinking more about Jesus than about myself."  I thought that was pretty profound.  Thinking about what Jesus wants instead of what I want.  Following Jesus' way instead of my own.  I think he has a pretty good idea of what it means to follow Jesus. 

A little while later he offered insight into why he hesitated to make that committment before.  He said, "Mom, when I first wake up, I'll probably think about me, but then I'll think about Jesus."  I realized in that moment that Joel had a lot more insight than I thought.  See, he knows how hard it is to focus on Jesus.  How easy it is to think about ourselves and do things our way. 

Joel's next question was, "Can we do that community thing?"  We laughed and then had communion as a family with bread and Capri Sun juice, which was the only juice we had on hand.  We celebrated with ice cream a few days later. 

We know that following Jesus is not a one time event, but a series of decisions over the course of a lifetime, but we are grateful that Joel has made the decision to start.  What an incredible blessing to see our children walk in the ways of the Lord.  It is our prayer that their committments will last a lifetime.