Written by Jocelynn Goff, volunteer with Iron Rose Sister Ministries
“Lead Me to Some Soul Today” is a song I grew up singing at church. I can still hear the Downtown church of Christ in Kansas City, MO, back in the mid 1960’s singing this. We started meeting in an old grocery store on a neighborhood street. We would sing this song, pray for souls, and then go door to door, inviting them to come to church, asking if they’d like a personal Bible study, and what needs they had. I remember many being curious at first, and after seeing the truth, they committed to become a Christian.
This is having the same heart as God and partnering with Him in His desire as we see in 1 Timothy 2:3b-4 “…God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (NIV). It was also the apostle Paul’s desire, as we see in Romans 10:1, “Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.” This was important to God and to the apostle Paul, so it should be our prayer as well.
Then the question is, how do we accomplish this? Prayer is first, and then a realization that there are many ways to be a witness for Christ living in us. A personal example of this is with our neighbor, Jackie.
Jackie lived across the street from us in Baton Rouge, LA. Shortly after we moved into our house, I went across the street to meet our neighbor and invite her to the neighborhood ladies’ Bible study on Thursdays. She blew cigarette smoke in my face and said she wasn’t interested. She said to come back when school started, as her son would be at school and she’d have more time. I thought she was the most disinterested person I’d ever met. However, I dutifully went each of the next several years at the beginning of the school year. Each time, she blew cigarette smoke in my face and found different excuses. The next year, I decided I was not a glutton for punishment (I have a strong dislike for cigarette smoke), and besides, she wasn’t interested. I had given up on her and started praying for another neighbor.
However, that was the year she came to my house! She asked me if we still had the neighborhood ladies’ Bible study. I replied yes, and then she ran back home. The next day she came back and said she’d like to know more about where I go to church, but not right then. We arranged for her to come back the next day and we’d have a conversation. Prayers covered this unexpected openness. The next morning came, and we sat at the kitchen table. I had just taken a sip of iced tea and was opening my mouth to begin speaking when in the door came some friends from church who said, “Hi, I’m hungry. Feed me.”
It was our friend Edith with her 2-year-old son, and a screaming baby, along with an engaged couple. Edith was our Puerto Rican friend who, along with her husband, we’d studied the Bible with a year earlier. As part of the Kingdom relationship, our families shared dinner every Monday night as we prayed together, continued Bible study, and twice took our two families on summer vacations together. I was glad to see Edith, but this was bad timing in my opinion. My thought was, “God, do You know what You’re doing? My neighbor was finally interested, and here you have our friends troop in for a meal.” I offered different sandwich choices and whispered to Edith, “I’m trying to study the Bible with my neighbor. Can you take the sandwiches and leave soon?” They did leave soon, but so did Jackie. I thought this was a failure. However, as Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.”
I thought Jackie was not interested when, in fact, she was very open and searching. She had applied for numerous Bible correspondence courses. Also, unknown to me, she and her family had frequently observed us from their kitchen window. They saw us leave for church, have brothers and sisters over for dinner, and host volleyball games. They saw the Kingdom in action when our house flooded. Then that day when we were supposed to have our first Bible study, she witnessed the relationships in Christ in each others’ homes. She admitted she’d never experienced anything like the family of God living in relationship with Him and each other. She was hungry to know more and know Him. We studied further, and she did become a Christian. Yes, it started with knocking on her door, but it was so much more because of living out faith in front of her.
Are you prayerfully living out the song, “Lead Me to Some Soul Today,” and seeking to have the same desire as God and Paul to have all people come to know the truth? May God bless all of us as we remain in Him to bear fruit.
