Jack of Harts

Today is the first day in my life in which I do not share this Earth with Billy Graham. I grew up hearing about him and listening to him on television. I learned how he worked with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement. How he refused to accept segregation at his revivals and preached against racism. How he spoke out against Communism as an Evil against mankind. He was a fiery orator and a man of burning convictions.

By the time I was alive, he had retired from practicing politics. He’d long since gone the way of the middle mediator, willing and eager to talk to anyone of any political persuasion. He was on this Earth to speak to Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, black and white, men and women of all ages. And always, in every appearance I remember, he would say that Jesus loves you. All of you. And that Salvation comes through accepting Him into your heart. He has spoken this Gospel in person, through television, and the internet to more people than any other person in history. His ministry says over 2 billion people have heard him speak. That’s amazing to think about.

Today I live in a world he does not. And I think we are all poorer for that. I don’t think this is really the end of an era. He isn’t Methuselah, and I don’t think his death will be the signal of a new catastrophe that will destroy civilization as we know it. But he was a good man who made it his life’s work to help other people through charitable organizations and more. Those live on without him now. So do the rest of us, and it will be our job to keep civilization running along. It is my great hope that Billy Graham’s words are not forgotten as we do this.

Now Billy Graham had a few words to say about the matter of his death. So I’ll let him close this little memorial with his own words.

“Someday, you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” – Billy Graham