We see this spirit in Billy as he responded to the 1995 Okla-
homa City bombing. David Frost observed that although the pres-
ident and the governor both spoke at the memorial service, it was
Billy’s words that “offered the most comfort to those who had lost
loved ones.”
Billy clearly put himself in the place of the bereaved. “Times
like this,” he said, “will do one of two things: They will either
make us hard and bitter and angry at God, or they will make us
tender and open and help us to reach out in trust and faith.... I
pray that you will not let bitterness and poison creep into your
souls, but you will turn in faith and trust in God even if we can-
not understand.”
Staunch Your Wounds, and Drive!
We all experience “emotional hits,” and we can’t deny them.
Even though we may find ourselves hurting badly—very badly—
we may still have to lead others.
We love the illustration pastor Ray Pritchard uses to show how
sometimes, despite what’s happened to us, we need to keep going.
“In the movie Black Hawk Down,” Pritchard says, “a vehicle filled
with wounded American soldiers lurches to a stop in the middle
of a street where Somali bullets are flying in every direction. The
officer in charge tells a soldier to get in and start driving. ‘I can’t,’
the soldier says, ‘I’m shot.’”
Sometimes as leaders bullets not only fly but hit us right in
the gut, disabling us.
But in Black Hawk Down, the officer uses this immortal line
after the soldier says he’s shot: “We’re all shot. Get in and drive!”
The human condition. We’re all wounded, but we have to
keep going anyway. Sometimes these are words to live by: “We’re
all shot. Get in and drive!”
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham