Still Leading

Last night I saw Billy Graham on Larry King Live.

This was an exchange that particularly caught my eye:

KING: The current president says you're the one who changed his life. That your ministry took him from being an alcoholic, to nearly losing his marriage, to being a man of faith. How does that make you feel?

GRAHAM: Well, you know, he says that. I don't say that. I never comment on his religious faith. I think he is a religious man. I think his father his, I think his mother is, his wife is, and I haven't seen him...

KING: Does it make you feel good when you hear that said?

GRAHAM: I feel good that he changed, but I'm not sure that it was my influence. He had a lot of influences around him, I'm sure.


Immediately I began to think. Wow. Billy Graham represents the face of loving Christianity. He's 85 years old. To answer some of the younger generation, I'm not sure how much more missional he can be when his organization raises 9 million dollars for poverty relief and his son's organization does the same. He's spoken to over 210 million people and saw many come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Larry King is interviewing him and asks if his involvement with the salvation of the current President of the strongest country in the world makes him feel good and he says that he feels good that the President changed but doesn't take the esteem for what he did in this young man's life.

How many of us in ministries can come close to a Billy Graham? No one that I know... and yet Billy Graham is still leading us all when it comes to the heart of the matter. It's about Christ and a relationship with Him. It is not about us or what we have 'done'.

He could so easily have said (and I would not have flinched or questioned him):
"Yeah, the President was a tough nut to crack but I just told him how it was... I'm glad I was there at a time he needed me and my message. I'm also glad I could contextualize the gospel for him. He had heard it before but he was turned off so I just repackaged it for him." But no, he didn't. He deflected the praise and exalted Jesus. (John 3:30)

I want to be found faithful with what God has given me but while being faithful I want to be found faithful with my attitude towards what He does with my life.