Words of Wisdom & Life Advice from a 92-Year-Old

“You've got to be flexible and sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Shift when He shifts you. And don't say no.”

Feb 26, 2025

Below is a snippet of a conversation with Nancy Kling, a 92-year-old woman who has lived a life fully devoted to the Lord. Nancy shares her journey of faith, highlighting how the Lord took her from a management position on Madison Ave in New York City – with all the glamor and prestige of the world – to the ghetto, where she started doing street ministry with children. Later, she was called to missions work in South Africa during a time of great political unrest at the end of apartheid.

Throughout our conversation, Nancy offers words of wisdom on overcoming fear, learning to shift with the Spirit, being in community with other believers, navigating loneliness, sharing in Christ’s suffering, “pressing on toward the mark”, and more. If you prefer listening, you can listen to or watch the full conversation on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

From Madison Avenue to the Ghetto of NYC

[In my twenties], I started out working in a human resources department and management position and it was in Pittsburgh. And I would say that at that point, I had everything that the world would say was successful. I had a good education, I had a good management position job that I enjoyed very much. I had money, a lot of money. I could buy beautiful, expensive clothes and I did. I had a great social life, I had friends, I had dates with guys, everything that you could ask for in a worldly sense I had. So at that point, I would say, I didn't have any needs. However, I did have needs.

There were two areas in my life that caused me to really start seeking if God was real. And the one area was my parents were having a terrible crisis in their relationship and my brother had called and said I had to come home because we had to deal with a family crisis. My mother needed a lot of counseling and medical psychology work and my dad had a nervous breakdown. And emotionally, I could not cope with that. It was overwhelming and that was one area where I just felt overwhelmed and I just needed help.

And the other thing that was happening was in the kind of job I had, I was being sucked into a very ungodly life. And those were my friends and that was the life and I was not happy with it. I was not brought up like that and I knew it. So I wanted out of that ungodly life, but I felt like I was in a trap. So I was crying out, I think from my heart, I was crying out like in desperation. Like, God, if you're real, I need to know if you're real because I'm overwhelmed.

So that was the time I think that I started really seeking God. I started attending church services and didn't find anything anywhere. But I did hear about a minister, it was an Episcopal church close to where I lived in Pittsburgh. And I was very impressed with him. And I started attending that church, and I felt that that is something I needed to continue doing. So I started going to that church. I still didn't have any feeling about God, but I just started going to church.

But the time came when this crisis happened with my parents and I had to leave and go home. I was just desperate, just cried out, Lord, I've got to know, are you there? Are you there? Are you really there? So on my way home to my parents' I was driving in the car. And while I was driving in the car, suddenly I was overwhelmed with His joy. And I know that it was the presence of the Lord just came into that car and just overwhelmed me. I was just flooded with joy, flooded with love. And I was just suddenly aware that it was the Lord and everything was gonna be okay. It was a sense of He was there, He did care. He was alive and if I would just let him into my life, then He would take care of things.

And when I arrived at the house, I arrived singing, which was totally different from what I would have done. But I just had this joy and assurance. Yes, God is real. He cares, He’s really gonna do something.

And actually while I was there, there was a solution to that problem that just developed. And it was like a miracle that happened that we were able to get help for both my parents and it was a way out. So that was the turning point for me because I believe that in my heart, I committed my life to the Lord at that point. I just yielded to Him and said, I know you're real. I just want to let you take charge of my life and work stuff out for me. So it's knowing God loved me and he cared for me.

Eventually, I moved to New York City, took a job there, had an increasing desire to work full-time for the Lord. It was a desire. And I want to say one thing: that the Lord puts His desires in your heart. Whatever life I had before Jesus, I had no clue about what I really needed. But God puts his desires in your heart. I had a desire to work full-time for God.

So while I was in New York City in that job, I became acquainted with some people who worked at the Bible School up in New York State and I started helping them. There was a ministry they had in the ghetto section of New York City, and it was in an area where the students would come down and they would minister to people for a while.

So I started working for them, the opportunity opened for me to start helping them in that ministry. And so I switched from this beautiful management position on Madison Avenue in New York City with all of the glamour and prestige of the world. And the Lord took me to the ghetto where all the prostitutes and all the drug addicts were. And I commuted by subway, and I went over there and I started out by helping with the street ministry with the children. And that is the big, big change that started me on my real journey with the Lord, that full-time service for Him…

What is the most important lesson the Lord has taught you over the years?

Flexibility. Being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, to His voice and His ways, and being flexible to change. I learned this early on, especially when I first started working in the Bible school, that there are constant changes and you have to be flexible to shift. It's shifting and not hardening your heart when it's something you don't want to do.

Some of the lessons at the Bible School, early on in the Bible School, because I was living there, decisions were made by leadership that were sudden changes or things that you really didn't want to do. But you knew it was God because you were under leadership and it was godly leadership. And it's having a heart and a mind to shift to what God was doing. So it's being flexible and not resisting when those changes come.

And I think the one scripture that means a lot regarding that is in John, the Gospel of John chapter three, when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and He’s explaining to him about the Spirit. “The wind blows where it wants and you hear the sound thereof but cannot tell from where it comes and where it goes. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.”

And I think this lesson that I had to learn about being flexible is like the wind. Sometimes you feel the wind and sometimes you don't. And sometimes the wind will blow from one direction and suddenly it will shift and blow from the opposite direction. And you have to set your sail up and quickly change. You have to change to go with the wind. The wind can be very strong or it can be very mild and soft. So the wind is unpredictable. I think that to me is the Holy Spirit.

We don't understand all the ways of God, but He knows. And we need to be flexible and ready to shift when the Holy Spirit shifts. So it's changes like that. And it's not easy. It's not easy, but God does not promise us an easy life. He has never given me an easy assignment. Every assignment He gives me is hard because I have to lean on Him. I have to trust Him and lean on Him and that's just what He wants me to do. So He challenges us with hard assignments.

But it's being flexible. That is the lesson. You've got to be flexible and sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Shift when He shifts you. And don't say no. I know how many times I have known that the Lord has said, ‘I want you to go and help that person over there.’ And I would say, I don't want to do that. I can't tell you how many times my reaction has been, I don't want to do that. But I end up doing it because it's the Lord. And I know that there's a blessing out of that, and it's rewarding and it's fruitful.

What words of wisdom would you pass on to the next generation?

Persevere and don’t give up. Stay strong in the faith. Daily prayer and reading the Word is vital to staying in relationship with the Lord. You have to communicate, daily praying, daily reading the Word, soaking it in. And being in a good fellowship of believers. Get in a local church, a local fellowship, where there are believers who are there for you, who can support you, who can speak into your life. It's vital to be connected with believers. There are no loners. There are no loners in the kingdom of God.

What is your favorite Bible verse and its significance to you?

I would say it's Philippians 3:10-14, where Paul is talking about his life. And those verses are an exhortation to know Christ, where Paul talks about his past life as nothing. He actually calls all of that, that life he had, he called it dung. That's the Bible word. That was all trash to him compared with knowing Christ.

It's an exhortation to know Christ. So that is how I've looked at my past life, before Christ, it was nothing compared to knowing Christ and just following Him and knowing His plan.

In verse 10 of that chapter, Paul says, “that I may know him.” It's like, this is the cry of my heart that I know Him, that I may know Him. And it's not just knowing a Bible story. It's I must know you. I must be in relationship with you, Jesus. It's I must know you.

And I cried out once to the Lord with that. I got on my knees once and I said I'm not getting up off my knees because I got to know you better. And so He took me to this verse that says “the fellowship of His sufferings” and I just kind of stopped and I said okay, I didn't know about that.

The Lord was showing me, yes, I will pull you into a close relationship, but it means suffering. It means you're going to share and suffer what I suffer. And that's not physical pain. That means I suffer with grief for the people who don't know me. It's a grief for people who don't know me. And so that's the kind of suffering it is, you're grieving.

But it's also the power of His resurrection. That I may know him, and the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection. So that was the cry of Paul's heart. And I have had that myself. And embracing when the suffering comes, embrace it. But you know the power, you know the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. You know the resurrection power. And it’s always there for you.

And he says, “press toward the mark.” I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That was his goal. And that I'd say, that's my verse. I press toward the mark, forgetting those things that are behind. I press toward the mark. And it's always now pressing toward the mark. You never stop pressing toward the mark. It's pressing on forward. I'm leaving behind even the things I've done for the Lord. I leave it behind and I press on toward the new things he has for me. The new things, the new assignments, the new challenges, because they're always going to be there.

When I asked Nancy about retirement, here is what she had to say:

There's no such word as retire in the kingdom of God. I’ve got to confront you on that one. You don't retire when you're in the kingdom of God. You refire. You get refired for the next assignment is what happens. It’s not retiring, it’s refiring.

It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what the situation is, God has purpose. God has purpose for us as long as we are breathing. And I have said this, I have seen and heard of people who are in comas who understand what's going on, but they're being used by God. You could pray, if you don't do anything else, you could pray. You could pray in your mind, even if you can't talk. There’s no end to what God has for you as long as you're breathing.

Other wise words worth echoing:

-“Loneliness is not filled by a person. Loneliness is filled by your relationship with Jesus. You can be out in a crowd and be lonely. You can be sitting in a social group somewhere and be lonely if you're not connected. But you can be alone in your apartment and know the presence of Jesus is there and not be lonely.”

-”Facing fear is just, you just walk through it. You don't give into it. You walk through whatever it is and keep going. The strength comes and the fight comes and you come through much stronger.”

-“The good way lies in commitment of your life to the Lord. Total commitment, body, soul, and spirit. To obey Him, to love Him, to serve Him 24/7, day and night, He’s always there. So that is a good way because His plan is the best. His plan is wonderful. His ways are wonderful. Letting Him take charge of your life is the way to go.”

Listen to or watch the full conversation on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

Thank you for being here,

Katharine

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