The Wisdom of Billy Graham

CT has a new interview with Billy Graham, and I clip only one question and answer:

If you could, would you go back and do anything differently?

Yes, of course. I’d spend more time at home with my family, and I’d study more and preach less. I wouldn’t have taken so many speaking engagements, including some of the things I did over the years that I probably didn’t really need to do—weddings and funerals and building dedications, things like that. Whenever I counsel someone who feels called to be an evangelist, I always urge them to guard their time and not feel like they have to do everything.

I also would have steered clear of politics. I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.

I’m so glad he said about family and time and studying. It’s easy to be tempted, perhaps most when we are younger, to be on the road every chance we get. We can be so ambitious. It’s God’s work, folks, not ours. We are mere instruments in the mission of God. (Missional theology ought to tone us down.)

I wish American leading evangelicals would get out of this “change the world by influencing the political leaders” mentality and instead show them how a kingdom vision embodied in a local church is the way forward.