■ ■ ■Billy has not been impervious to the pressures; his body and psy-
che have paid a steep price. But he has taken his own advice, so
often expressed in various ways in his newspaper columns, books,
and articles. He has continually plugged himself into the spiritual
and psychological voltage that has made this half-century saga
possible.
From the beginning, his spiritual power has come from prayer
and the Bible. His colleague, T. W. Wilson, called him “the most
completely disciplined person I have ever known.” The discipline
started around 7:00 a.m. each day, when he would read five
psalms and one chapter of Proverbs. He started there because, as
he often said, the psalms showed him how to relate to God, while
Proverbs taught him how to relate to people. After breakfast he
would pray and study more Scripture. Even under the pressure of
travel schedules moving him from city to city, from hotel to hotel,
often through many time zones, he strove to study and pray each
morning.
Some close to Billy describe him as more adaptive to circum-
stances in fitting in study and prayer, but all emphasize his spend-
ing large amounts of time connecting with his source of wisdom,
cleansing, and power.
Even in the early days of youthful vigor, the demands on him
made him intensely aware of his need for that power. When the
1957 New York campaign was so effective that the pastors asked
him to stay for another month of meetings, he told Grady Wilson
he didn’t think he could make it even one more day. “All of my
strength has departed from me. I’ve preached all the material I
can lay my hands on. Yet God wants me here.” In all, he wound
up preaching virtually every night there for over three months,
making additional public appearances and speaking at many of
them during the day.
Grady Wilson believed it was “the prayers of people all over
the world” that gave Billy the needed stamina for the task. Yet he
also believed that the grueling time in New York drew down his
Plugging into Continuous Voltage