very unusual. His voice just makes you want to listen. Yet he
understands it’s a gift the Lord bestowed on him.”
Bennett and Emery observed and experienced early in Billy’s
ministry his intensity and humility. They saw for the next half
century that he never flinched from the furnace.
What furnace? As seen elsewhere in this book, Billy experi-
enced plenty of intense heat throughout his ministry. He may
have had enjoyable moments playing golf with presidents and
staying overnight with them in the White House, yet he also had
to deal with firestorms of criticism. Some of them were ferocious
attacks on off-the-cuff statements printed under national and
international headlines. He was jolted by the Watergate revela-
tions of “the dark side” of his friend Richard Nixon, then felt the
pain of having his private conversations with him, taped without
his knowledge, made public.
The Bible tells us that everyone alive “is born to sorrow, as the
sparks fly upward.” Everyone experiences personal tragedies and
inevitable grief, but leaders bear all these along with the weight
of knowing how much their decisions, attitudes, and actions affect
others. And to Billy Graham has always been added the weight
of knowing he had been given enormous opportunity and, there-
fore, responsibility before his God.
Billy rose to the larger-than-life challenges. He never flinched
from the furnace—but he let its intense heat extrude him into an
extraordinary leader.
■ ■ ■Leadership.Theodore Roosevelt’s “arena” statement is perhaps the
most famous quotation of all on the subject. Many a commence-
ment address and inspirational speech have included the ringing
words:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how
the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have
done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually
in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham