There was a great deal to ponder. All five sat silently for some time, reflecting on the implications of the baron’s words for each of them personally.

“How do you know when such a moment has come?” asked Matthew.

“You will know.”

“How?”

“He will not let you mistake it.”

“What if you don’t hear him?”

“He will speak again.”

“If you still don’t hear?”

“Then he will speak once more, louder.”

“If still you don’t hear?”

“He will continue to call your name. He will speak until you have heard, and until you know you have heard. And always the words are the same—Follow me!”

“Then what?” asked Thaddeus. “When you have heard and you know he is speaking to you, what do you do then?”

“That’s the moment of decision,” answered the baron. “You must decide whether you are going to obey and follow him as his disciples did when he said it to them… or take the sad path of the rich young ruler.”

“And if you want to follow him, and that is your decision, then what do you actually do? How do you begin to follow him?”

The baron smiled. The words could not have rejoiced his spirit more. He knew the truths of God were taking root!

A man with less faith in his Father would have, then and there, pressed Thaddeus and Matthew toward a handful of artificially framed decisionary words of his own devising. But Heinrich von Dortmann was too much a son of his Father, and too faithful a younger follower of his elder Brother, to interfere with their work by erecting signposts of spirituality of his own construction. He would not tamper with the inner dialog between either man’s spirit and the voice of his Maker by intruding himself into the center of that eternal discourse.

He would but point. They would have to walk the path individually, with only the Spirit of Truth, and the obedience of their hands and feet, to guide them.

“What do you do?” he repeated softly.

“Yes,” said Thaddeus.

“Two things,” answered the baron. “I can tell you in a few seconds. If you are in earnest when that moment comes, it will take the rest of your life for you to carry them out. And when you reach the end of your life, you will look back and realize that you still have only progressed past merely the first steps of beginning. But then, of course, this whole life of ours on earth is only a beginning!”

“What are the two things?”

“First, read John 3 and John 15. In those passages Jesus explains what it means to be his disciple and how to become one.”

“And the second?”

Again the baron smiled.