All About Josh

This weekend, for us, is all about Josh.  His birthday is Monday, so this is his birthday weekend.  We started something a long time ago that has now become a tradition.  The family member who is having the birthday, gets to choose most of what we do for the weekend.  We will typically eat out a couple of times, and they get to choose the location.  So Josh has planned his weekend.


Tonight we ate at Subway, which is one of his favorites.  Tomorrow he is having a friend over, and then later in the day he wants his family (grandparents) to come over and help celebrate his day.  Sunday, he's getting baptized.  He thinks it will be neat getting baptized this close to his birthday, and I agree.  I'm thrilled to both hear, and witness how excited he is about being baptized.  His teacher said that he has been talking about it at school.  And I've also heard him mention it to several people.  As I wrote in a previous post, it is so much fun walking this walk with him.  We are so thankful that God blessed us with his life, and thankful that the Lord has invited us to walk through life with HIM.

Miss Anything Else, but Don't Miss My Voice

Our eight year old son, Joshua, wants to be baptized.  He initiated it.  He has set the date. He is telling people about it, and he's been talking about it a lot.

What I love most about Him talking about it, is that when he refers to it, He does it mostly from a "relational" stand point.

Last night, before bed, He was talking about hearing God's voice.  He brought that up, not me.  He said from His little eight year old heart and mind something to the effect of "I think I'll have more conversations with God once I get baptized."  He then said, "I think that sometimes during the day, I'll just stop to listen."  Then He followed that up with,  "How will I know if I'm hearing His voice in my head, or if it's just my thoughts?"

I thought to myself, "Great thoughts, and great question."  I told him that the more He gets to know Jesus, the easier it will be to recognize His voice.  I also told Him that God would never say anything that would go against the Bible, like He probably would never tell you to go hit your friend as hard as you can, and hurt them just for the fun of it.

But the truth is, and I will talk to Josh more about this too, don't most of us struggle sometimes with knowing whether something is our own thoughts, and knowing if it's Jesus?  And I do think it has become easier to discern the more I've walked with him, but there are still those times that I have to say, "Lord, is this me, or is this you."  Quite frankly, that's one of the determining factors for me.  If I have to stop and ask that question, then most often it's God.

There's a lot more thoughts I have on this, and a lot more I'd like to share, but I have to prepare for a mtg this morning, I just wanted to throw this out there because it was on my heart this morning, AND because I'm reading a book called "Come Away My Beloved" by Francis J. Roberts, and what I read this morning went right along with my conversation with Josh, and I loved it, so I wanted to share.  I read this:

"Miss anything else, but don't miss my voice. Other voices may introduce disharmony, but My voice will always bring peace to thy heart and clarity to thy thinking.  For ye shall hear My voice behind thee saying:  This is the way, walk ye in it, when thou turnest to the left hand or to the right."

May we stop and listen today.