As you go to do a work among the young people, go praying. Although you may not have much time to pray privately in your room, you can still pray at every moment. Pray to the Lord about the chosen ones, saying, “Lord, give me Your chosen people. Lord, You are sovereign. I believe that among all these students there are a number who have been chosen by You in eternity past but who have not yet been called. Lord, give me Your chosen ones.” As you pray in this way, you must believe that the Lord will give them to you, granting you the proper people whom He has chosen for His purpose in eternity past. I can give many testimonies concerning this. I can testify that in the Lord’s work I have never selected one co-worker. The Lord gave me so many co-workers. Ask the Lord to give you His chosen ones. He is sovereign in this matter. Simply be one with the Lord in the spirit. You are not going to the campus to do your own work, to carry out a work started by you. No, you are going there with the Lord to do a work originated by Him. Therefore, you can ask Him to give you His chosen ones, and He will do it.
As you contact people, you must have a very sensitive spirit. You need a spirit that is living, capable, and full of spiritual sensitivity. When you contact people, you must exercise your spirit to sense them out. If you do this, you will be able to recognize their need. Eventually, you will learn the different needs of people. For example, you may meet a person who is a Christian in name but who has never experienced salvation. There will be no need for him to say that he has not had this experience. At a certain point in your contact with him, you will sense that he is this kind of person. After sensing his need, you will be able to help him by feeding him, by supplying what he needs. There will be no need to say, “Friend, I sense that you have not been saved. I will exercise my spirit by the grace of God to help you experience salvation.” If you do this, he will think that there is something wrong with you. A good doctor does not reveal very much to his patient. The less a doctor talks, the better. When you sense the need of someone, there is no need to tell him. Instead, supply his need unconsciously, helping him to have the proper experience in life. Use the instant wisdom that the Lord will give you. Perhaps you will give a testimony either of your experience or of the experience of others. The testimony of your experience of salvation may help him.
Perhaps you will meet someone who has experienced salvation yet who has little interest in the Lord. In other words, he does not love the Lord. He is open to you and enjoys talking to you, but he does not love the Lord. You must look to the Lord for the wisdom how to help him to be stirred up to love the Lord, to be constrained by the love of Christ. I am certain that the way of preaching doctrine will not work. Do not say, “Friend, Jesus loves us and we all must love Him.” This is preaching and it will not avail. Mainly what will work is fellowship with testimonies. I cannot give you a method. You must look to the Lord and exercise the wisdom that He will give you. This is similar to driving a car. In driving, you must be alert and flexible. No one can tell you ahead of time everything you must do in your driving. Rather, you must drive flexibly and alertly.
The way we contact people depends upon how living our spirit is. If our spirit is constantly living and has a living consciousness and intuition, we shall have the wisdom we need. Sometimes people have come to me when my spirit was occupied or exhausted. Although I listened to them, I had no clear sense and no wisdom. All I could sense was numbness. When I was asked how I felt, I had no feeling whatever because my spirit was not keen. But when my spirit is keen, like a sharp knife, I can tell what someone intends to say after they utter only one sentence. The spirit knows. In 1 Corinthians 2 Paul says that the spirit knows all things. You need to exercise your spirit. Every time you go on campus, you must go with a living, aggressive, and alert spirit. However, do not expose the fact that you have such a spirit. This all depends on your experience. Without experience, you will have nothing with which to search people. Knowledge and preaching do not work. Never take the way of preaching or of passing on knowledge. You must serve people by exercising your spirit with the wisdom given by the Lord. Then you will know how to feed them and to take care of their needs. We all must learn this.
From 1940 until the early part of 1943, I was in my home town caring for the church there. Every Monday morning the shepherding ones came together for training. I asked them to present all the difficult cases and I told them how to take care of them. We all learned from this, and this practice of caring for people was prevailing. Contacting young people is not simply a matter of telling them that the Lord Jesus is the Savior and of asking them to come to the church meeting. This will not work. You all have to learn the proper way—to be living in your spirit.