Last night I volunteered with the
Word of Life Superbowl in Binghamton and the COOLEST thing happened! While I
was sitting at the Davis table, helping admissions out with recruiting, a girl
came up to the table. She was unsure of my name at first but she recognized me.
It turns out that she had been one of the girls that I had counseled last
year after they had both made first time decisions for salvation. She told
me that both she and her friend were back this year and they had brought four
more friends back with them. Those friends made the decision to accept the Lord
tonight.
It was so cool! Partly it was cool
simply because those girls didn’t make a decision that night on an emotional
high just to fall away from it later. It is always encouraging, especially as
someone who has done salvation counseling with many different people, to see
that they really meant it. But more than anything, it was cool because I
remember counseling them. And I remember feeling like I had done a horrible job
at it! I hadn’t reviewed the gospel with anyone in a while, I was missing
points, I was distracted and all over the place! And they both had kind of
given me deer in the headlights looks when I was done. So it was so amazing to
find out tonight that even though I felt like I had done a terrible job, and
maybe from formal training standpoint I did, I was still able to impact those
girls so much that they remembered me a whole year later!
I don’t say that to brag on myself
at all! I say that to brag on my God! It was such an awesome reminder to me
that I am unable to do ministry on my own. Because if it hadn’t been for the
Holy Spirit working through me, even in the disorganized rambling mess that I
felt I had been, I never could have adequately counseled those girls. If the
only tool I had was my rambling on about Jesus, those girls probably wouldn’t
have come to Christ that night. They probably would have left and completely
forgot about it. But because I had the Spirit of the Living God working through
me as I counseled those girls, my words were able to minister and impact those
girls in spite of my rustiness. The Bible says in Luke 12:11b-12, “Do not be
anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the
Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” What a
testament to that promise this story truly is. Even when I lacked words, the
Spirit still spoke through me in a mighty way.
Lastly, this encounter really
impacted me because the girls came back with more friends! God used me to plant
a seed in their lives. Not only did that seed grow, it started producing and
planting more seeds! And that is such refreshing news for someone in ministry.
Not only did God use me to plant seeds in just two girl’s lives, he used me to
plant seeds in their lives so they could spread the same seed in the lives of
their friends. And who knows how much further it will continue to spread. I may
never know how far the seeds I have planted will reach, and I don’t need to
know. It is just so refreshing to be reminded that a seed planted truly never
is a waste. You never know how many more seeds will be planted because of just
one.
I shared with those girls what a
blessing they had been to me by sharing all of this. And God laid it on my
heart to pray with them again. So I got to pray over the girls again before
they left. They both gave me hugs and said, “See you next year!” I don’t know
if I will actually see them next year or not, though I hope I do. But even if I
don’t, God used them in my life on that one night to remind me that even when I
feel like I have failed, the Spirit can still work through me to plant seeds
that grow and then continue spreading. I am so glad that God used an encounter
as cool as this to teach and remind me of these important ministry truths.
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