The veteran Pastor D. Stuart Briscoe, who had a very successful life of ministry in the United States but grew up in England, remembers one of Dr. Billy Graham’s early crusades:

“He was something of a phenomenon over there. When this long, lanky Carolinian came over wearing flashy ties, the likes of which we had never seen before, he began to speak to us in his very appealing Carolinian drawl. On one occasion, I heard him say, much to my amazement, “If you ain’t seen the moon in Carolina, you ain’t seen the moon.” To say that he was somewhat different from our normal English clergymen is putting it mildly.

“This was at the time that Elizabeth Taylor, the beautiful English actress, was hitting the headlines. (When did she not hit the headlines?) In those days, she was still young and still beautiful, but she was running into all kinds of problems. Billy Graham told a congregation that he had been in touch with her and knew what was going on. A mutual friend of ours, called Dr. Joe Smart, saved her life when he operated on her in a critical emergency. Billy Graham said to the congregation, ‘Don’t envy Elizabeth Taylor; pray for her.’ And a little fellow on the back row stood up and said, ‘I pray for her every night, but I never get her.’”

What are you praying for? Are you delighting yourself in God and God’s ways? (Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”) Is there something that you are hesitating to take to the Lord in prayer? I’ve got good news for you: God wants to hear from you! And God has gone out of his way to make it possible for that to happen. It is easier said than done, but the lines to the old hymn are still hauntingly beautiful, “We should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer.” May we be known as the people who do that - “take it to the Lord” - at every given opportunity.

In Christ, 

Rick