38 - Instructing the New Convert

THIS WOULDNT BE your ‘crowning day’ if Jesus should I come today, would it? You had better get over to that meeting as fast as you can!” the Holy Spirit whispered to Helen Innes after she had played the hymn, “Is It the Crowning Day?” It was a rainy Sunday afternoon in 1915. The rest of the family had gone to the Faith Home meeting, and Helen, alone at home, was consoling herself by playing various hymns on the piano. Mr. Innes was one of the parents to whom the Lord bad spoken several years before by Mrs. R. that they should pray for the conversion of their eldest daughters.ⁿ Faithfully he had done this, and often when Helen was straightening up his room in the morning, after he had left for work in Chicago, she found the place where he had knelt to pray wet with tears. And she knew that those tears had been shed as her beloved father had fervently interceded with God for her salvation. Note: See Chapter XXXI, p. 211 Up to this time, however, Helen “seemed to be utterly elusive to the wooing of the Holy Spirit.” Now a student at the University of Chicago, she was not interested in sur­rendering her life to the Lord and had been very clever, so she thought, in finding “ways of getting around God!” Today, however, the Holy Spirit had tracked her down, and in spite of the inclement weather she responded immediately. “As I hurried the two short blocks to the service in the Faith Home Meeting House,” recalls Helen, “I secretly hoped that my father would not see me, for that was the last thing I wanted. But upon arriving at the Meeting House, the only available seat was one directly in front of him. Shortly after I was seated, a message in tongues was given, followed by the interpretation which, however, was given so low that, seated in the back of the congregation as I was, I could not hear. Later I learned that the message was to the effect that there was someone in that afternoon service to whom the Lord did not promise another opportunity for salvation, and would the people pray for the conversion of that soul. “Immediately the entire audience went to their knees— everyone, that is, except me, for I sat upright, unmoved. After about an hour of fervent intercession, one of the min­isters, Elder Eugene Brooks, came and stood in front of me and with his kindly southern accent said, ‘Daughter, don’t you think it is time for you to give your heart to God?’ That broke up the fountain of the deep within me, so that I went to my knees and cried for a long time until all the hardness of my heart was broken, and my life and will were surrendered to God. “After the meeting two of the ministers, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Judd, went home with me and for several hours taught me and prayed with me, showing me how to yield my life completely to Him and to grow in the Lord.” Mrs. R. directed the young convert’s attention to such passages as First Corinthians Thirteen with its teaching on love; Colossians Three with its teaching on putting off “the old man with his deeds” and putting on “the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him;” Galatians Five with its teaching on the fruit of the Spirit; and Philippians Four with its teaching on rejoicing in the Lord always and what things we are to think on. These truths, Mrs. R. told Helen, must be prayed over and obeyed until they were lived out in her life. “I have often said that I felt that if I had been cast on a desert isle I could have gone on with just those simple in­structions for my spiritual life,” recalls Helen after more than forty years of successful ministry. “I shall never cease to thank God for the Faith Home ministers who taught me the all-importance of obeying the Word of God and seeking Jesus.” Soon after this evening, Helen was baptized in the Holy Spirit and entered the Homes for training for Christian service. She it is who is responsible for preserving the quote from Mrs. Robinson: “Sweetly mind your own affairs when other folks don’t please you.” An excellent example of the very practical advice Mrs. Robinson so often gave for the daily life.