reserves. “Since that time, I don’t believe he’s ever regained all
his strength.”
Cliff Barrows agrees. “Bill was so weary in the latter few
weeks, he felt he just couldn’t go another day, but the Lord kept
giving him strength. But at the end of the meetings, something
left him, something came out of him physically that has never
been replaced.”
Despite the recurring sense of being drained and empty, Billy
didn’t quit. As Grady observed, “When he mounts the platform,
though, it seems the Holy Spirit gives him a resurgence of vitality
and power.”
Pastor Warren Wiersbe offered us similar testimony. “When
Billy stood up to speak one night, I thought, This guy is not going to
make it. You could tell he was not at his best physically; he just
didn’t look like he was up to it. And then something happened,
like you plugged in a computer—that power was there. The
minute he stepped into that pulpit and opened his Bible, some-
thing happened. I’ve heard him say that when he gets up to
preach, he feels like electricity is going through him.”
This is the picture so often described by his colleagues: weak-
ness drawing on the Spirit. And it wasn’t simply physical fatigue
but a wrestling with the realities of the human condition and his
own shortcomings. “All of us are awfully human,” observed
Grady. “Billy is painfully aware of his humanity.” He noted, for
instance, that “Billy has a temper, but he keeps it in check.” How?
“He stays close to his Lord and spiritual discipline and prayer.”
Rick Marshall, in his first meeting with Billy, was amazed at
his being so open about his fatigue and by his humble prayers. “I
remember thinking to myself, This is Billy Graham?It was such a
contrast to the persona I had watched filling the stadium with
his booming voice and authority. But when I was actually with
the man, I was overwhelmed by the humility, the raw honesty
before God about his own inability and physical limitations. That
was the way I viewed him for the next twenty-three years. It
kept me willing to stay within an organization that placed a lot
of demands on me.”
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham