Yesterday I watched what amounted to a beautiful, moving video greeting card for Billy Graham on the occasion of his 93rd birthday. I happened to be channel surfing, and there it was. I have never really watched him speak, as I know he is an evangelist and I have been a Christian since the age of four. But there, interspersed between the birthday messages from actors, professional athletes and Graham family members, were snapshots of his commanding altar calls and messages from over the decades. In that arresting voice that has called millions to faith in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, Billy Graham said things that moved me to tears. One thing stands out, and I hope it will for the rest of whatever days I have left on this earth: (I am paraphrasing from memory) "I would like to go to my mountain house and live there and have a small church. But God has called me to be a warrior to five continents and that is what I will be until He gives the command to stop." Tears streaming down my face I sat on my couch and envied Billy Graham. I envied his devotion to Jesus Christ. I envied his complete commitment to obeying God's call. I watched, mystified and understanding all at the same time as grainy, black-and-white video portrayed the masses streaming to the alter. In another clip Brother Graham preached in a prison yard, heads turned up in anticipation, while others watched from barred windows. It struck me that all of humanity in its diversity and wilfullness, each one of the billions of us who have ever lived, has a God-shaped hole in our hearts and we yearn for Him. The message of grace and forgiveness is not only welcome in the prison yard, where sin led to physical imprisonment, but also in Manhattan and L.A. and Hollywood, where emotional prisons built by condemnation, guilt and feelings of unworthiness have isolated hungry souls from God. What Jesus did cannot ever be replicated. We need Him, and He loves us.
No comments:
Post a Comment