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• Holy Spirit

Today’s story will be written from two perspectives: mine, Michelle Goff, and that of our new student intern, Faith Bailey. We invite you to see how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of others, even when we are not aware, and especially when we get out of the way.

Faith Bailey:
There are times in life when the steps you take come so easily that it’s difficult to know if you’re following God’s best plan for you or just taking the path of least resistance. Other times, you may be struggling so much to make the pieces fit that you question the influence God’s will has in your decisions. Unless we tune our eyes to see the Spirit working in our lives, the confidence we have in our decision-making skills may seem shaky and the whole process unnecessarily stressful. I recently experienced something like this.

It was well before Thanksgiving when I started researching opportunities for this summer. I had a desire to use a passion for languages to assist people in the discovery of Scripture. I had very specific requests, and I brought it to God frequently as I searched for the right fit. Along the way, God proved again and again that He was trustworthy and trained me to listen. I began to see evidence of the Spirit working in my life to affirm and guide my thoughts and actions. After months of praying, I had found the “perfect” internship, but soon learned it was canceled this summer... By mid-April, I had no prospects in sight. I desperately tried to work something out, and finally became exhausted of attempting to force what I wanted.

I remember very distinctly praying one last time before the summer fell into place. I didn’t want to strive anymore. I wanted to obey. It felt like I had been working against the Spirit. I felt the only way I could proceed confidently was if I knew I was working toward God’s best plan. I asked Him to just hit me in the face with it (in His gentle, loving way).

Within 12 hours, I was sitting in Starbucks, after deciding to skip my class at the last second. Michelle and I started talking. Our conversation quickly turned to Iron Rose Sister Ministries. When she mentioned they had been praying for increased involvement, my ears perked up. My mind automatically started thinking of the list I had stored in my brain for months, and checked off so many of the descriptions I had been praying for.

After we officially started this journey together, I faced the daunting task of raising funds. In just a month or so all of the funds I needed became available. During that time, the Spirit reminded me of a quote from Hudson Taylor, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.” God had led me this far. His love and ability to provide what we need can’t be taken away.

Even though we sometimes have different plans, I had to trust that He would led me in my next steps. I knew I would be better off in the center of His will than anywhere else. These moments may seem small when they stand alone, but they led me to Iron Rose Sister Ministries and tell a story of God’s faithfulness. I have seen the Spirit’s guiding and urging along the way, and can therefore be confident that God’s Work will be done.

Michelle Goff:
Given that our primary purpose as a ministry is to equip women, we always want to be able to take advantage of the opportunity to train young women that plan to work in ministry or missions in the future. We pray that God will lead us to the right person at the right time, but this year, I had tried to make it happen several times and several ways, yet to no avail. I finally let it go and had made my peace with having no intern this summer at all.
One Friday morning in mid-April, while other IRSM representatives were taking care of a booth in Kansas, I met with someone in Starbucks to seek her expertise and share resources for an event I will be speaking at in Panama in August. Blessed by our time together, I texted the Board member with whom I was scheduled to have a phone meeting immediately following the morning coffee date. She was unavailable at that moment and instead of heading home to work with Erica, our ministry assistant, I felt the Spirit urging me to stay seated there in Starbucks.

The timing for my phone meeting kept getting delayed and I was confused as to why we could not seem to connect for our planned conversation. At least a dozen times I debated the timing of my transition to head back home to work and conduct the pending phone meeting from there. The logical thing was to head home. The practical thing was to head home. And yet I stayed.

Finally, after about an hour of highly productive work, I felt a peace about leaving. As soon as I was ready to go, the board member texted that she was ready to talk, but one final prompting of the Spirit told me to wait until I got in the car and put in my Bluetooth to start our conversation. Attempting to be obedient, I texted her back to give me a couple of minutes and I’d be ready.

Well, the “couple of minutes” turned into more like 15 minutes because as I walked toward the door (on the opposite side of Starbucks than I usually work or meet with students), I “happened” to run into Faith... And what she shared above is the rest of the story.

I am humbled by the way the Spirit works and am grateful for God’s gentle reminder of His timing, His plans, His selection of workers, and His going before us. We trust the Spirit’s guidance and direction in the same way as He leads us to the full-time Assistant Director we are seeking. God is faithful. And I cannot wait to see how He keeps putting all the pieces together!

For more information about the Assistant Director position, the job description is available on our website. The post is open through June 11, 2018. We appreciate your prayers in this search!

#IronRoseSister #HolySpirit #summerintern #missions

• Holy Spirit

Allow me to share one of my favorite stories about how the Holy Spirit works in and through us... Back in the summer of 1996, a young freshman in college ventured on a mission trip to Venezuela—her first time out of the country and her first opportunity to put the Spanish she had studied in textbooks to the test. She spent the first four weeks on a campaign with about 20 other students, meeting people, inviting them to the nightly meetings conducted by the local church, studying the Bible with people and learning a lot about herself and a new culture.

After those initial four weeks, she and two other students stayed for another three weeks to follow up on all of the contacts that had been reached during the campaign. The young man that stayed spoke no Spanish and the other girl that stayed, while she was somewhat proficient, contracted salmonella and was in bed most of the remaining time.

So, this young girl, novice-level in her Spanish, and young guy, barely able to say “hola,” trekked across the city, following up on dozens of people who had signed up for personal Bible studies. They would visit a home and if it was a man that had signed up for the study, Michelle, as we will call her, would translate for the young man and if it was a woman who had signed up for the study, Michelle would teach while the young man read his Bible and sipped the coffee all the students had grown to love.

On one such occasion, in the home of a lady who had signed up for a personal Bible study, Michelle was faced with a difficult question she wasn’t sure of the answer to in English and felt even less equipped to answer in Spanish. She said a quick prayer and a few minutes later, realized that she had just given the most eloquent and Scriptural answer to a very difficult question. Actually, she didn’t. She didn’t give that answer and none of those eloquent words were her own. Even if she had been able to answer the question adequately, her Spanish was at a level that the response would have been less than eloquent.

Yes, that was me. I still remember that day vividly. I don’t remember the question the lady asked, nor her name, but I will never forget the light that came on in her eyes as the Spirit took over for me and spoke through me in a way that I had never experienced before. I was hooked. I knew from that day forward that I wanted to use my life in any way possible to allow the Spirit to speak through me to shed The Light to any that wanted to hear the good news of the hope we have in Christ.

Excerpt taken from the final chapter of Human AND Holy, available on our website.
Also, I share this and other stories during a presentation about Iron Rose Sister Ministries at Harbor/Pepperdine Bible Lectures. The video is available via Facebook Live and on our YouTube channel.

#IronRoseSister #HolySpirit #HumanandHoly