Finding Our Passion
Photo used with permission from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
You may not have heard of Billy Graham. A study once found that nearly one out of every three Americans under the age of 30 have not. Graham was a lanky, North Carolina farm boy who felt called by God to the ministry of evangelism. Before his life ended, he shared the message of Jesus with more people – and saw more of them respond to that message – than any other figure in human history.
To those who live near or plan to visit the Charlotte area in North Carolina, I would strongly encourage you to take an afternoon to see the Billy Graham Library. Designed the way presidential libraries are often fashioned, it is a moving experience, taking you not only through Graham’s life but also through the main events of the 20th century. As you walk through the museum, it becomes clear that Graham’s was a life marked by three things that enabled him to answer God’s call in the manner God dreamed of when the call was given: integrity, faithfulness and passion.
It’s the final mark that I want to focus on here—a life of single-minded passion. Graham’s passion was for a world that was lost apart from Christ.
Stephen Olford once reflected on visiting Graham on the top floor of the New Yorker hotel right before Graham’s famed 1956 New York crusade. This was a crusade that would go down in history as one of the most important spiritual breakthroughs not only in Graham’s ministry but also for evangelical faith in America.
He walked with him out on the balcony and, looking over the city, began to talk of the upcoming effort—about who would come and how God might work. While they were talking, Stephen noticed that Graham began to break down in tears. He couldn’t help it—he was crying over the city.
That type of passion is more critical than you might think. I’ve long observed that the natural flow of the human heart is toward itself, rather than toward others. At least I know that it works that way with mine.
Let your passion flow outward toward others. Only then will what consumes you consume others.
In the summer of 2000, I joined thousands of other invited delegates to Amsterdam 2000, arguably Graham’s last great leadership effort. It was an event that gathered evangelists from around the world in order to pass on the torch of passion that Graham and others of his generation held so high.
During one of the sessions, an interview was shown with a man who had come to the conference from Africa. He was a cheerful man; a happy man. He spoke of how much he had longed to come to Amsterdam to learn all that he could about sharing Christ with others, so that he could do everything possible to join with God on the mission.
But he had no money to make the journey. The price of the airline ticket, lodging and food was equal to an entire year’s worth of food for him and his missionary family.
So this is what he did. He and his wife and family prayed, and decided together that going to Amsterdam to learn more about sharing Christ with a lost world was the most important investment they could make. That nothing was more critical than the building of the church – not just in Africa, but around the world – and that if this is what it took, it was worth whatever it took to get him there.
They took their entire food allowance – the only money they were going to receive for food for the entire year – and spent it on sending him to Amsterdam so that he could become better at sharing the message of Jesus and building His Church. He said that he had no idea what he would do, or how his family would eat. He ended by saying, “I believe Africa will never be the same.”
That is the type of passion that we need to find. That is the type of passion that drove Graham.
It is often asked, “Who will be the next Billy Graham?”
The answer, of course, is no one.
The real question is, “Who will carry on Graham’s integrity, Graham’s faithfulness and Graham’s passionate sense of mission?” Because that is the torch he carried, and the torch that he had to pass.
In his closing words to those of us in Amsterdam, conveyed by satellite from his bed at the Mayo Clinic, Graham told of the famed Christian martyrs Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer who were burned at the stake for their Christian beliefs.
Just before his death, Latimer uttered a cry that has echoed across the centuries:
“Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust never shall be put out.”
I hope that we can all find that kind of passion in our lives.
James Emery White
Sources
Adapted from the eBook by James Emery White, A Traveler’s Guide to the Kingdom. Click here to order this resource from Church & Culture.