You Can Begin Again … But Beware
This man’s story sends a warning
Do you want to Begin Again … in any aspect of your life?… Would you like to start your life all over again, and get it right this time? That’s a repetitive feeling for many people. How about you?
“I’m born again!” is what you might hear from someone who feels that they have had a real life-changing experience, and ‘Born Again’ is a phrase most often associated with the evangelical christian movement. My main message today is not necessarily a religious one, though I have chosen some examples of religious experience to get to that main point.
So stick with me … I’m not going to challenge atheism or agnosticism, but I am going to illustrate how being born again can be difficult to maintain once it’s achieved. First though, here’s my intro story:
A few years ago I was sitting at a dinner table with my wife and two friends. I noticed that our lady friend was wearing a crucifix around her neck, so I said to her: “Are you catholic?” (associating crucifix-wearing with Catholicism). She replied: “No, I’m not religious … I don’t go to church”. Then, her husband exclaimed with a sense of urgency: “I’m a born-Again Christian!”
I was quite taken-aback. I’d known this guy for some time and had always seen him as a lovely man … kind; helpful; friendly, though not ‘churchy’, and here he was declaring “I’m Born Again!”.
That incident led me to wonder: “Do people who experience a ‘born again’ moment, (religious or otherwise) go on to live-out and demonstrate that spirit of newness in their everyday, work-a-day lives?”
I found an interesting ‘answer’ to that question when I heard Billy Graham the American Evangelist speak to an audience of tech nerds in Silicon Valley. I will re-present that story below, but first a brief ‘outline’ of Billy’s preaching style and how he invited people to be ‘Born Again’:
In the 20th Century Billy Graham took the Billy Graham Crusades to countries all over the world. He preached his message to many millions, and he had the strongest of desires to ‘Bring people to Christ’; to preach the gospel message of ‘The good News’; and to preach that lives could be changed and people could be ‘Born Again’ if they were to make ‘A Decision for Christ’.
So powerful were his sermon messages that thousands and thousands of people all over the world would ‘Come to know Christ as their Savior’, and demonstrate their decision by ‘Coming Forward’ at the end of each crusade session. Billy would end all of his sermon messages with the same plea, asking those who would come, to make a commitment to follow Jesus … Now; right now; not tomorrow; not next week, but Now! His end-of-message plea always took the same form; the same wording:
“Now is the accepted time’ Today is the day of salvation. Come while you can”.
So it was at crusade meetings held in vast sports stadiums all over the world, including Manchester, England in 1961 when I was there to witness it all. (You can read this my story: “When Jesus Came to Manchester” in a link to that story that you’ll find at the end of this one).
It was the same in Melbourne, Australia too in 1959, when 130,000 people attended a single crusade meeting at the Melbourne Cricket Club ground (The MCG). That’s still a record attendance there, to this day!
But Billy Graham was a realist too. He understood that to simply say that you have made a decision to follow Christ, is not enough; you have to live-out your decision daily; you have, as it were, ‘to live like Jesus’, or at least, you need to remind yourself daily of your commitment.
Like all decisions in life, this decision’s effectiveness was only as good as its maintenance schedule. As any sports star might say: “If you drop the ball, don’t forget to pick it up and start again”. If you don’t … well …!
Now, here’s Billy Graham’s own story; a true story from his own life:
In 1998, when he was 80 years old, Billy Graham was invited to speak at a TED conference session held in Silicon Valley, California, USA. His audience was mainly young computer ‘nerds’, and the title of the conference was: ‘Technology, Faith, and Human Shortcomings’ and when Billy stepped up to the lectern, the young crowd must have been wondering just what advice this famous evangelist would be delivering. No doubt there would be some in the audience (perhaps many … or most?) who would be dismissing his words, even before he spoke.
Billy Graham, like all good speakers, anticipated his audience and had given serious thought to how he might introduce himself before launching into his ‘message for that occasion’. All good speakers warm-up their audience first; it’s standard practice; and Billy Graham was very practiced.
He began by deliberately ‘playing down’ his importance, and he did this by emphasizing the point that people who don’t know him (and particularly young folk like his audience that day) might perhaps be expecting some great ‘presence’ when he stepped up to speak. So what would they see, and what would be their first reaction? What he told them (right at the start) was this: (I paraphrase Billy’s actual story here).
“Some years ago I was invited to speak at a conference at a Hotel and after settling in I got into an elevator (a lift) with other people. One of the occupants was heard to say: “I hear that Billy Graham is speaking”. “Yes, said one of his colleagues, and he’s in this elevator with us”, indicating Billy. “The first guy then looked across at me”, said Billy … and exclaimed: “My, what an anticlimax!”
At that point, Billy’s audience burst into lovable laughter, and when it had died down, Billy slipped in this comment:
“I hope you won’t feel that these few minutes with me are an anticlimax”
Of course, by then, he had ‘won his audience over’
Billy then went on to tell his young audience of another real-life event that he had experienced some years earlier … and this is the main point of my story for you today: He told of one occasion when he and a friend (John Belks, the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina) were together on an airplane flight, with John Belks sitting in an aisle seat opposite Billy.
On another aisle seat, a little further forward was a man who was causing quite a stir for passengers who could see him. He was drinking too much; quite a bit tipsy one might say; and to make matters worse, his actions were very embarrassing to watch. Every time one of the female stewardesses passed him by he would slap & pinch her bottom. He was also getting quite raucous. And people were becoming embarrassed and uncomfortable.
John Belks left his seat and made his way to this man’s row. He simply said to the man: “Do you know who is sitting right there?” (pointing towards Billy) … “No” said the man, slurring his words as he added: “And who is he anyway?”. John Belks replied: “It’s Billy Graham … the preacher”.
The man immediately said: “You don’t say!”, and got up out of his seat, walked as best he could to Billy’s aisle, and said, (stretching his hand out): “Put it there! Your sermons have certainly helped me”.
Billy’s audience of nerds ‘got it in one’. They roared with laughter. Billy had just delivered ‘another’ message, and one that holds true whether or not you are religious:
Preacher or no preacher; sermon message or wisdom quote; favorite belief or ‘guaranteed’ good advice; New Year Resolution or simple a desire to be better. None are of any REAL value unless they are of LASTING value.
Put another way, I guess you might say: “Search for the truth, and when you believe you’ve found it, stick by it.”
As the title of my article says: “You Can Begin Again … But Beware” Good advice hey?
How about you? How are you doing with your life?
To see Billy Graham’s TED talk in full, click on the following link: Billy Graham’s TED Talk to Computer Nerds
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“You can begin Again …But Beware” by Fred: Almost Famous * * * * * © Fred Ogden 2021 * * * * * (To see Fred’s other Religion & Philosophy stories use this link.
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