I was at a Pastors’ Conference in Eastern Europe recently. The speaker asked the pastors and church leaders who were gathered to do a small group exercise. Part of what they were to do was answer the question, “What is your ambition in life?” A very elderly gentleman in my group who serves as a leader in his church began to speak.

He said both of his parents died from circumstances brought about by a famine when he was young. He was left without his parents, and an aunt and her family took him in. The aunt was a follower of Christ. She gave him a Bible to read and pointed him to the Gospels in the New Testament.

The man told the story of how, at the age of 17, he started reading through the Bible his aunt gave him. He began to weep when he got to the part about Jesus being crucified. As he told us this story, tears again filled his eyes. He said, “Then and there I decided to follow Jesus with my life and I have not turned back since.”

Then he answered the question, “What is your ambition in life?” He said, “I want to love and follow Jesus until he will call me home.” These are the words of a sincere, Spirit-filled disciple. May it be so in our lives as well.