A Modern Parable by Rose McCormick Brandon

 Two young evangelists attended a conference in Florida where respected teachers expressed doubt in the veracity of the Bible. This created doubt in the minds of the men. One left evangelism, returned to his home country and began a career in journalism.

The other also returned home. He re-read Paul’s message to his apprentice, Timothy, where he states that all scripture is inspired by God. He recalled that Jesus quoted scripture many times, including from the creation story, which was the portion of scripture most under scrutiny (Matt. 19:4-6).

“I walked out in the moonlight, my heart heavy and burdened. I dropped to my knees and opened my Bible on a tree stump. ‘Oh God, I prayed, there are many things in this book I do not understand. But God, I’m going to accept this book as your word by faith. I’m going to allow my faith to go beyond my intellect and believe that this is your inspired Word.’ From that moment on I have never doubted God’s Word.”*

The man who left evangelism was Charles Templeton. He became editor of The Toronto Star and a frequent guest on Canadian television. He espoused the arguments of skeptics and wrote a book sadly titled, Farewell to God. The second man was Billy Graham. After his faith crisis he became more confident in preaching the Bible. Thousands follow Jesus today because of his commitment to scripture. He too wrote books, each one based on scripture. 

Paul reminded the Corinthian believers that the Church of Christ is like a house (I Cor. 3:11). A defective foundation affects the whole structure. When a person, or church, loses their commitment to biblical authority, its foundation crumbles. Windows that should let in the fresh breath of God’s Spirit no longer open. Doors that should lead to the knowledge of the Savior hang purposelessly on rusted hinges.

True believers trust the Bible, teach the Bible and live according to its precepts. 

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” 2 Tim. 3:16

One person put it this way: Where the Bible is not believed the church speaks with a stutter. 

The stories of these two men read like a modern-day parable that illustrates the necessity of building our faith on Jesus and His Word (Acts 2:36). One man’s faith crumbled. The other man’s grew stronger. Our lives are parables too. Let your legacy be that you believed the Bible is the Word of God and that it is a gift from Him to all humanity.

Prayer: Thank you for your inspired Word. 

Dr E Stanley Jones, the Billy Graham of India -HIRD

by Rev Dr. Ed & Janice Hird,
What if we told you that in his lifetime, Dr. E. Stanley Jones was the most-widely read spiritual author in the entire world, with 28 books, some selling millions of copies?   Born in Clarksville, Maryland, in 1884, Time Magazine called him the world’s greatest missionary.   In 1964, Time stated that Jones’ “fame overseas as an evangelist is matched only by Billy Graham.”  Many see him as the Billy Graham of India.   Billy Graham spent ten minutes in his 1963 Los Angeles Crusade, commending Jones's missionary work, calling him his “good friend and trusted advisor.”  Billy Graham wrote in his final book that Jones “made a profound impact on all those around him because of his extraordinary faith and service to others…His is a worthy testimony of living a meaningful life during the journey to eternal life.”
Jones initiated “round table conferences” at which Christian and non-Christian sat down as equals to share how their spiritual experiences enabled them to live better.  Tom Albin said that “everyone was asked to share only their religious experience and specifically ‘how religion was working, what it was doing for us, and how we could find deeper reality.’”    Serving in India for over 50 years, Jones was personal friends with Mahatma Gandhi.   A top spokesman for the Indian government, when Jones received the Gandhi Peace Prize, called him “the greatest interpreter of Indian affairs in our time.”  Who could have imagined that God would use Jones’ book on Gandhi to inspire Martin Luther King Jr to launch the non-violent civil rights movement?  King told Jones: “It was your book on Gandhi that gave me my first inkling of nonviolent noncooperation.”
While in England, Gandhi for the first time read the Bible, finding the New Testament compelling, especially the Sermon on the Mount.  As Gandhi commented, it ‘went straight to my heart’.  Because Gandhi daily read the Sermon on the Mount, Jones said to Gandhi “You know the principles.  Do you know the person yet?” Gandhi confessed that he didn’t but was searching.
Early in his missionary service in India, Jones suffered a physical and emotional collapse.  Telling the Lord that he was done, he surrendered his ministry to Jesus, and the Lord miraculously restored him.   Self-surrender became his theme and song. 
There are many United Christian Ashram retreats across Canada and around the world.  Many members of our family have been powerfully impacted by the past 47 years of the BC Christian Ashram. The first one was started in India by Dr. E. Stanley Jones in 1930, after spending time at Rabindranath Tagore’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s ashrams.   Jones said that only Jesus was good enough to be the leader, the guru of a Christian Ashram.   He was very Christ-centered, teaching that the highest thing we can say about God the Father is that he is Christ-like.  Inscriptions on the original Christian Ashram walls in Sat Tal, India, said, “Here everybody loves everybody”, “East and West are alternate beats of the same heart”, and “Leave behind all race and class distinctions, all ye that enter here.” Jones commented that in the Christian Ashram, barriers of class and cash disappear completely.  A black man shared, “This has been the first week of my life in an unsegregated world. I have lost my resentment against white people.” 
Jones was exiled by the British government during World War II because of his stand for racial equality and independence for India. Experiencing reverse-culture shock, Jones spoke out against American racism on NBC radio:
“When I landed on the shores of my native land on September 7th, had I obeyed my impulses I should have taken the first boat back to India … I must confess I came to America with deep questionings and concern. From a distance your civilization seemed superficial and your Christianity inadequate.“ 
He told a critic: “If I should be kept back from India permanently, God forbid, then I should consider seriously giving the balance of my working days to help the (Afro-Americans) of America to an equal status in our democracy and to their fullest development as a people. For the color question has become a world question.”  This time of exile also enabled him to transplant the Christian Ashram movement to Canada and the United States.  For many years, Stanley Jones spent six months in North America conducting city-wide missions and Christian Ashrams, and the other six months overseas.
Because of his global impact, Jones the peacemaker was invited to periodically meet with Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, John Foster Dulles, and Japanese Emperor Hirohito.   Jones saw everything through the eyes of the Kingdom, seeing inequality and racism as violation of Kingdom principles.  He called the caste system “India’s curse”, similarly rejecting the curse of racism in his own American homeland.  In a 1947 article “India's Caste System and Ours,” Jones commented. “The caste systems of India and America are fundamentally alike – they are both founded on blood.”  For Jones, the sin of racism had set back the cause of missions and democracy, saying
“There are no local or national problems any longer. Our treatment of the (Afro-American) is a part of a world racial problem and should be treated as such … You and I know that the central problem of Missions in the East is the white man’s domination. It haunts every gathering, public and private, we have in the East.” 
He was one of the first in the States to have desegregated meetings, causing some people to gossip about Jones as a communist agitator.  Jones also served on the Advisory Committee for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which organized the Freedom Rides of the early 1960’s.  Reader’s Digest published an article entitled “Methodism’s Pink Fringe” (February 1950), portraying Jones as a Communist sympathizer, or worse. Jones responded ironically “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never has been called a Red?”   Because of his connection with Gandhi, Edgar Hoover had a 117-page FBI file on Jones.  Since he led so many communists to Christ, the communist leaders were not very happy about him either.  Jones replied, “You say, ‘He tends dangerous towards social equality between the races.’ If this be a crime, then so be it. It is a treason against democracy and against the Christian faith to advocate inequality of treatment between the races.” If the local laws required that blacks sit in the balcony, Jones instructed groups of whites on the main floor to move to the balcony themselves when the service began.   Dr. Bob Tuttle commented “Stanley had the pulse of the world. Who was more global at the time! He was the true renaissance man.” E Stanley Jones was truly a global firestarter for Jesus’ Kingdom. 

Click on this link to learn more about the United Christian Ashrams. www.christianashram.org

Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird
Co-authors of the  Blue Sky novel
-previously published in the Light Magazine

Corrie Ten Boom: Victory Through Surrender

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

Corrie ten Boom once said: “I’ve never had the joy of bringing to birth a child, but I’ve often had the great joy to bring the rebirth to someone else. The creative life that a woman had to be married and have children, I could use in the Kingdom of God.”

After the Nazis conquered Holland, 100,000 Dutch Jews were sent to concentration camps. Corrie’s father, Casper, known as the Grand Old Man of Haarlem, had a deep love of Jewish people, saying, “In this house, God’s people are always welcome.” No one was turned away. Corrie similarly prayed, “Lord Jesus, I offer myself for your people. In any way. Any place. Any time.” Through disguising themselves as Nazi soldiers, her underground team saved 100 Jewish babies who were about to be killed in an orphanage. A well-known architect built them a secret 2 1/2 foot wide hiding place behind a new brick wall in Corrie’s bedroom. Even after arresting the Ten Booms, the Gestapo were never able to find the Jews hidden in this ‘angelcrib’ hiding place. At the time of the arrest, Corrie’s interrogator painfully slapped her in the face after every question. Corrie cried out: “Lord Jesus, protect me!” He hissed at her, “If you mention that name again once more, I will kill you.” But miraculously, he stopped beating her. Corrie, Betsie and their Father all glanced at their fireplace’s plaque ‘Jesus is Victor’. Corrie thought: “It looks now as if the Gestapo were the conquerors. But they are not.”

Corrie and her sister Betsie hid over 800 Jewish people in their Haarlem watchmaker home, before being sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in East Germany where 96,000 women died. “The sufferings of Jesus”, said Corrie, “became very real to me at Ravensbruck.” She lost four family members in the concentration camps, including her beloved older sister Betsie who forgave and prayed for the guards even as they mercilessly beat her. “Don’t hate”, Betsie pleaded to Corrie. Three days before Betsie died, she shared with her sister Corrie the vision of first opening healing homes in Holland and Germany, before going around the world sharing about Jesus’ love and forgiveness. Two weeks later, Corrie was set free through a God-ordained clerical error. One week after this, all the other women her age at Ravensbruck were taken to the gas chamber.

Upon returning to Holland, Corrie opened a home in Holland to bring healing for people, even including the ostracized Dutch who had collaborated with the Nazis. She was knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands for her work.

Corrie told God that she was willing to go where he wanted her to go, but hoped that he’d never send her back to Germany. Finally, after sensing a blockage in her prayer life, she repented, saying, “Yes, Lord, I’ll go to Germany too.” God sent her back to Ravensbruck to lead bible studies with former guards, now in prison. Then, she rented and cleaned up a former concentration camp in Germany to bring temporary housing and healing to some of the nine million Germans who had been bombed or driven out of their homes.

In Munich, a former Ravensbruck guard said to Corrie: ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein. To think, as you said, that he washes my sins away!’ Corrie later wrote, “His hand was thrust out to shake mine….Even as angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man. Was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him…Again I silently prayed ‘Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness’. As I took his hand, my heart felt an overwhelming love for this stranger.”

Corrie became a penniless tramp for the Lord, travelling for three decades to 62 countries, and sleeping in over 1,000 different beds. Wherever she went globally, Corrie shared from her Ravensbruck experience that the light and love of Jesus Christ is deeper than the deepest darkness. She was the favourite travelling companion of the Bible-smuggler, Brother Andrew as they both did missionary work behind the Iron Curtain in Vietnam and 12 other Communist countries. In Vietnam, they gave her the honorific title of ‘Double-old Grandmother.” While in the Soviet Union, she intentionally preached the gospel in her hotel room, knowing that everything she said was being listened to and recorded by communist officials.
Corrie was a unique blend of the compassion of a Mother Theresa and the evangelistic passion of Billy Graham. Through her deep friendship with Rev. Billy and Ruth Graham, Corrie’s Hiding Place book was turned into a movie reaching tens of millions. Ruth Graham said: “I didn’t know anyone who had suffered so intensely for the Lord and for his people, as Corrie had, and come through with absolutely nothing but love in her heart for her captors —she forgave them.” In 1967, Corrie was recognized by Israel as a righteous gentile, planting a tree in her honour. When people kept telling her how brave she was, Corrie transparently prayed, “What little courage I have…I was not brave. I was often like a timid, fluttering bird, looking for a hiding place….Lord, I am weak and cowardly and of little faith; do hold me close. Thou art the conqueror. May that assurance give me courage and loyalty.”

Speaking in an African prison, Corrie said about Ravensbruck, “I knew that unforgiveness would do more harm than the guard’s whip…I could not do it. I was not able. Jesus in me was able to do it. You see, you never touch the ocean of God’s love as when you love your enemies.” When Corrie shared with prisoners in Rwanda, a revival of joy and hope broke out, even among the guards. As she was leaving, the prisoners swarmed around her, chanting ‘Old woman, come back. Old woman, come back and tell us more of Jesus.” Many people are unaware of the powerful international healing ministry that Corrie had, once even healing a leper in Vellore, India, through laying on of her hands.

Because of her work blessing indigenous people, Corrie was adopted into the Hopi First Nation and given the name, Beautiful Flower. While staying at a Kansas farm, Corrie challenged her host, who had recently kicked his son out, telling him to never darken his doorstep again. She said to the farmer: “If you believe in Jesus Christ and belong to Him, your sins have been cast into the depths of the sea, and that’s very deep. But then he expects also that you forgive the sins of your boy and cast them into the depths of the sea. Just imagine how you would feel if there should be another war, if your son had to go back into service and was killed in action. Don’t you think you should forgive him right now?” After riding together in silence, the farmer invited Corrie to go with him where he asked his son to forgive him. His son replied: “But Father, I should ask you for forgiveness.”

In her late sixties, Corrie was betrayed and hurt by some Christians she loved and trusted: “You would have thought that, having been able to forgive the guards in Ravensbruck, forgiving Christian friends would be child’s play. It wasn’t. For weeks, I seethed inside. But at last I asked God again to work His miracle in me…I was restored to the Father.” She later burnt the painful letters from her friends, as a sign of letting go. Are you willing, like Corrie, to find victory through surrendering your unforgiveness?

Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird – co-authors of For Better, For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship

George Whitefield: Waking Up to the Fire of Christ -HIRD

George Whitefield: Waking up to the Fire of Christ

By Rev. Dr. Ed &Janice Hird

-an article previously published in the April 2019 Light Magazine

When is the last time that your pastor had to be hoisted, like George Whitefield, through a window into your crowded church building, because there was no other way in?  The Rev. George Whitefield took part in a Great Awakening that is still impacting many congregations today.  Charles Spurgeon called Whitefield “all life, fire, wing, force.”

After being ordained at age 21, Whitefield was accused of driving fifteen people mad in his first sermon.  His Gloucester Bishop Benson ironically said that he wished that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday.  The so-called madness was actually people waking up to the life-changing love of Christ.  In his 34 years of ordained ministry, Whitefield preached more than 18,000 sermons to around ten million people.  Dr. Thomas S Kidd holds that “perhaps he was the greatest evangelical preacher the world has ever known.” Because of his speaking gift, Whitefield’s nickname was the Seraph (type of angel).  He was once described by UK Prime Minister Lloyd George as the greatest popular orator ever produced by England.  David Hume, a famous agnostic commented that “Mr Whitfield is the most ingenious preacher I ever heard. It is worth going twenty miles to hear him.” The famous English actor David Garrick held that Whitefield could “make men weep and tremble by his varied utterances of the word ‘Mesopotamia’.” (the ancient land that Abraham came from)

While in Oxford, he became close friends with John and Charles Wesley who helped him in the spiritual disciplines. After reading the book The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Whitefield became convinced that good works would not earn him heaven: “God showed me that I must be born again....” Experiencing the new birth gave him a fresh love of the beauty of spring: “At other times, I would be so overpowered with a sense of God’s Infinite Majesty that I would be compelled to throw myself on the ground and offer my soul as a blank in his hands, to write on it what he pleased.” The new birth became the heart of an unprecedented evangelical revival. 

Whitefield accepted the Wesley’s invitation to join them as missionaries in Savannah, Georgia. He waited however for months to sail to Georgia with his patron General Oglethorpe.  During this delay in England, tens of thousands came to hear him preach about the new birth.  After passionately preaching outside to 10,000 miners in Kingswood near Bristol, he wrote: “The fire is kindled in the country; and, I know, all the devils in hell shall not be able to quench it.”  Whitefield became the Billy Graham of the 17^th century, preaching that all people need to be born again.  He was very countercultural, doing the unthinkable thing of preaching in fields, without notes, to tens of thousands. In 17^th century England, sermons were only supposed to be given inside church buildings. In 17^th England, because of the fear of revolution, the worst thing you could be accused of was enthusiasm. Whitefield sought to reach the heart as well as the head, saying that many people “were unaffected by an unfelt, unknown Christ.”

On his way to Georgia, Whitefield had such a strong voice that when the two other ships travelling with them drew close, he was simultaneously able to preach to all the people on the three ships. At a time when travel was precarious, Whitefield had seven visits to America, fifteen to Scotland, and two to Ireland.  Whitefield was the best-known person to have travelled extensively in the thirteen American colonies.  By 1740, he had become the most famous man in both America and Britain, at least the most famous aside from King George II.  Reminiscent of the Beatles, he was the first ‘British sensation.’ 

Whitefield was radically generous even to a fault.  Wherever revival meetings took place, Whitefield received offerings, including from Benjamin Franklin, to help with the most famous orphanage in North America, Bethesda in Savannah, Georgia.  After Benjamin Franklin scientifically established that Whitefield was able to preach to 30,000 without a microphone, he became his publisher, and a close friend and ally. Between 1740 and 1742, Franklin printed forty-three books and pamphlets dealing with Whitefield and the evangelical movement.  He even built Whitefield a building for preaching that became the University of Pennsylvania.  That is why there are statues of both Franklin and Whitefield as co-founders of the University of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin commented: “It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world was growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families in every street.”

The Bishop’s Commissary (superintendent), Alexander Garden, in Charleston was offended by Whitefield’s article challenging slave owners over mistreatment of slaves, and by Whitefield’s preaching both in other parish areas and among other denominations. Garden declared that the slave owners were going to sue Whitefield for libel. During his sermon, Garden attacked Whitefield, and refused him communion.  Then he dragged Whitefield into an ecclesiastical court, trying to defrock him.  Jonathan Edwards of Northhampton, a co-leader in the Great Awakening, wrote: “Whitefield was reproached in the most scurrilous and scandalous manner...I question whether history affords any instance paralleled with this, as so much pains taken in writing to blacken a man’s character, and render him odious.” Whitefield did not let criticism stop him, saying “The more I am opposed, the more joy I feel.”  

On a Sunday morning in Philadelphia, Whitefield preached to perhaps 15,000 people.  Then, he attended an Anglican Communion service where Commissary Cummings publicly denounced him and his followers. Whitefield followed this right after with preaching a farewell sermon to an outdoor assembly of 20,000.  The relentless pace was brutal to Whitefield’s health. At another time in Boston, “Whitfield was running himself ragged and becoming extremely ill, violently vomiting between sermons. He was feverish, dehydrated, and sweating profusely.”

During his four years away from England, the Gentleman’s Magazine and other English newspapers listed George Whitefield as having died.  He changed so many lives that even the English upper classes began to give Whitefield a hearing.  Lord Bolingbroke, after hearing Whitefield at Lady Huntington’s place, wrote: “Mr Whitefield is the most extraordinary man of our times. He has the most commanding eloquence I ever heard in any person...” One Anglican minister claimed that Whitefield had set England on fire with the devil’s flames. Whitefield countered. “It is not a fire of the Devil’s kindling, but a holy fire that has proceeded from the Holy and blessed Spirit. Oh, that such a fire may not only be kindled, but blow up into a flame all England, and all the world over!”

Dying at 55, Whitefield had been used to set many people on fire with love for Christ.  He memorably prayed: “O that I could do more for Him! O that I was a flame of pure and holy fire, and had a thousand lives to spend in the dear Redeemer’s Service.” Whitefield was passionate about awakening to the new birth.  We in Canada also need to wake up to the fire of Christ. We too need to recapture the priority of the new birth. Have you, like Whitefield, awoken yet to the new birth?

Rev Dr. Ed and Janice Hird

Co-authors of ForBetter, For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship

Rising Love: A Valentine's Love Story - HIRD

By Rev. Dr.  Ed Hird

Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s wife Maryon once famously quipped “Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.”[1] Billy Graham, aged 98, was recently named for the 60^th consecutive year in a Gallup poll as one of the ten most admired people in the world, along with Bernie Sanders, Pope Francis, and Bill Gates.  It was Ruth Graham his devoted wife for sixty-three years who enabled Billy Graham to be healthy in the midst of relentless international attention.  Without Ruth’s loving care for their five children, it would have been impossible for Billy Graham to have taken part in 417 city-wide celebrations in 185 countries, speaking to live audiences of nearly 215 million people.  Billy and Ruth Graham were a Valentine’s love story that we can all learn from. 

Ruth, who lived her first seventeen years in China, never wanted to marry, intending instead to become a missionary in Tibet.  After going to school in North Korea, she moved to Wheaton College in Illinois.  There in 1940, she met her future husband Billy who instantly fell in love with her.  Ruth was slightly startled by his intense blue eyes.  As her biographer Patricia Cornwell put it, “Billy was unlike anyone Ruth had met....earnest, quietly confident, and personal. Clearly he spoke as one who knew God and knew him well...But what interested Ruth was that as Billy escorted her...,he seemed completely unaware of his uniqueness, his poignancy, his gift.”[2]  Billy was very nervous around Ruth, but eventually invited Ruth to hear Handel’s Messiah with him.  That night Ruth knelt on the carpet by her bed and prayed, 'God, if You let me serve with that man, I'd consider it the greatest privilege in my life.'  Ruth wrote to her medical missionary parents in China, saying: "Despite Bill's fearlessness and sometimes sternness, he is just as thoughtful and gentle as you want a man to be...he makes you feel perfectly natural and looked after without being showy or obnoxious. Sounds like I'm in love, doesn't it? Don't get worried. I'm not."[3] Both Billy and Ruth were independent and very determined people which led to some early challenges in their relationship.  It was normal in Ruth’s family for women to be strong and outspoken, something that Billy had to get used to.  In writing to her parents in 1941, she said: “(Billy) isn’t easy to love because of his sternness and unwavering stand on certain issues.  Many a night I have come in almost hating the man because I wanted my way in some little thing that was either unwise or foolish or something, and he wouldn't give in even if it meant losing my love...”  Sometimes Billy and Ruth could be the immovable object and the irresistible force.   Writing to her parents later in 1941, she said: "(Billy) has his faults and some people object to his fearless, uncompromising presentation of the gospel. But that was the first thing about him that commanded my attention and later my admiration --as I grew to know him better, my trust."

After accepting his marriage proposal, she visited her sister Rosa in a New Mexico TB Sanitarium.  While there suffering from exhaustion, she wrote Billy a crushing letter, telling him that she didn’t think that she was in love with him and that marriage was perhaps unwise.[4]  Her sister miraculously recovered, and Ruth went ahead with the wedding.  Cornwell commented: “What Ruth would do next, no one could predict, for she was as quietly stubborn as the sphinx and just about as inscrutable...She didn't necessarily do the practical or the expected.”[5]

One of the greatest challenges to their marriage was how much Billy was away. Ruth often said: "I would rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man."  Many of Billy Graham’s sermon illustrations came directly from Ruth’s voracious reading of biographies, histories, novels, books about art and foreign countries. It was Ruth’s deep faith in God that kept her going through many trying times.  One time after Billy unexpectedly went with his buddies to Chicago without Ruth, she tearfully prayed: "God, if you forgive me for marrying him, I'll never do it again." When he realized how much he hurt her, he was full of tender apologies.  Ruth often said: " Sometimes beautiful women develop from adjusting to difficult men." By all accounts, Ruth was a beautiful woman in body, mind and spirit. Her medical missionary dad, her evangelist husband Billy and her beloved prodigal son Franklin all helped her become more beautiful.

In 1963, Billy wrote to Ruth: "How can I find words to express my appreciation for all you have meant to me. Your love and patience with me in my ups and downs...have meant more to me than you will ever know. Your counsel, advice, encouragement, and prayer have been my mainstay....It seems in the recent months my capacity to love you has deepened...I love the wife of my youth more every day!...Yes, I am thankful to God for you...No child ever had a greater mother than our children.”[6]

Rev Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission InCanada

 -an article for the Feb 2017 Light Magazine 

-author of Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit

---

[1] Maryon Pearson spoke her mind". Toronto Star, December 28, 1989.

[2] Patricia Daniels Cornwell, A Time for Remembering: The Ruth Bell Graham Story (Harper & Row, San Francisco), 60.

[3] Cornwell, 63.

[4] Cornwell, 72.

[5] Cornwell, 155.

[6] Cornwell, 149.

Healing from Judgmentalism -HIRD

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Many people dream of Christmas time being a family time where everyone can get along.  Sometimes people drink heavily at Christmas as a way of self-medicating the pain of being in close quarters with their family.  Most of us find it painful to be around people, including spouses, who are being very judgmental and negative.  In some families, judgmentalism is the air that we breath.  It is all that we know.  What might it look like to be healed from judgmentalism at Christmas?

When Jesus famously tells us not to judge in Matthew 7:1, he is not telling us to be undiscerning, but rather not to condemn and reject other people with whom we may disagree.  Yes, there is a place for constructive criticism with our spouses, family, coworkers and friends, but it needs to rooted in an environment of love, acceptance and encouragement.  This is why Dr John Gottman found that in healthy marriages and relationships, people make five positive comments for every negative comment.  Healing from judgmentalism involves choosing words of life over words of death and destruction, especially at Christmas.

Billy Graham, who turned 98 this month, insightfully said this year that being judgmental and constantly criticizing others is wrong in the eyes of God.   It is not one of the gifts of the Spirit, like the gift of encouragement.  You can’t criticize and condemn people into Christlikeness.  Dr. Graham, who has spoken in person to over 260 million people, observed that a judgmental attitude also blinds us to our own faults. (Have you ever noticed that judgmental people almost never criticize themselves?) Jesus said that such judgmentalism is like having a log in our eye while trying to doing eye surgery on someone else’s speck of sawdust.  Judgmental people are often very insecure, and are constantly seeking to build themselves up. One way they do this is by tearing other people down. But in reality, said Dr. Graham, they end up tearing themselves down also, because no one wants to be their friend.  Judgmental people are often the loneliest people on earth.  Renouncing judgmentalism restores the gift of relationship particularly with our families.

Jesus gave us a difficult task: to judge or discern nonjudgmentally: “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” (Luke 12:54) At the heart of judgmentalism is prejudice, which means to pre-judge, to judge too quickly before you have taken time to examine the facts. Jesus can deliver us from the curse of prejudice.  It is not a sin to have moral convictions about right and wrong, but we need to take the time to carefully listen to other people’s viewpoints and never condemn other people when we disagree with them.  Healing from judgmentalism requires a willingness to die to the need to win arguments for their own sake.  People become more important than our need to always be right.   I will always remember my sister advising me about a difficult situation: “Be kind.”  We can all learn to be more kind like Jesus, gentle like Jesus, humble like Jesus, and nonjudgmental like Jesus.  Even when Jesus challenged people to repent and turn from sin and selfishness, he was always loving, tolerant, and kind. 

You can’t reach people for Christ to whom you are being judgmental.  Judgmentalism just drives them away.  Is there anyone in your life that you need to stop judging this Christmas?

 

Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in Canada

-an article for the OSL Christmas Issue of the Canadian Healer

Like Father, Like Son? -HIRD

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

I am so grateful that my father is still here on earth.  When a person deeply admires their father, it is easy to feel that one can never fill their shoes.  When I lost my voice for eighteen months in December 1980, I remember feeling that I must be disappointing my father.  What I have discovered over the years is that my father has been one of my greatest supporters, and has never stopped cheering for me. 

Recently I read the book Rebel with A Cause, which described the fascinating relationship between Billy Graham and his son Franklin.  Growing up is rarely easy, especially for those with highly successful, famous parents.  During his time of rebellion, Franklin learned that he could truly be himself rather than have to be another Billy Graham.  Franklin commented: “Almost every child who has a famous parent struggles with finding his own way and wondering if he is being viewed as an individual, not just an extension of his father or mother.”  Finding out whom we really are takes time, self-reflection, and willingness to grow. 

Franklin’s deep love for his now ninety-seven year old father shines through every page of this book.  You can also see how the family sacrificed because Billy Graham, being in such demand, was away for long stretches of time.  Successful parents are often forced to travel a lot, often at great cost to their families.  Franklin’s mom Ruth was a rock of stability and caring in the midst of the whirlwind of Billy Graham’s global travels.

A major part of Franklin working through his rebellious phase was through his participation in the early days of Samaritan’s Purse, a relief agency perhaps best known nowadays for Operation Christmas Child.  Franklin commented: “…I didn’t like seeing people getting hurt when they couldn’t do much to help themselves.” 

The Graham family has a deep spirit of adventure which causes them to sometimes hang over the edge.  Out of compassion for workers at a Jordanian medical clinic, Franklin and a companion drove a much needed land rover from England to Jordan, travelling thousands of often precarious miles through nine countries, including Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.  When international or North American tragedy strikes, Franklin through Samaritan’s Purse is often one of the first to be there helping.  The book tells gripping stories of risking life and limb as lives are helped in the tumultuous Middle East and in war-torn countries like Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.  Through Samaritan’s Purse, many doctors and nurses like Dr. Kent Brantley have served in places like Liberia during the Ebola epidemic, even sometimes contracting and surviving the virus themselves.  Samaritan’s Purse reminds us that the love of God and love of neighbour go together.  Jesus not only shared good news with people.  He also practically fed the poor and healed the sick.  May we too be people who love both God and neighbour.

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in Canada

-an article for the June 2016 Deep Cove Crier

Johnny Cash: Remix by the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

                                             

     This Mother’s Day, I give thanks for Johnny Cash’s mother Carrie.  She said to Johnny at age 15:  "You've got a gift, JR. You're going to sing. God's got his hand on you. You're going to carry the message of Jesus Christ."  Cash saw the song ‘I walk the Line’ as his first Gospel hit.  He sang it not just to his wife, but also to God.  His mother Carrie always believed in her son even through the worst of his addictions.  Sadly Johnny’s alcoholic father did not know how to bless his son.  When his older brother died tragically, his father unfairly blamed Johnny, saying “Too bad it wasn’t you instead of Jack.”

     Johnny Cash was a seventeen-time Grammy winner who sold more than 90 million albums in his lifetime.  But his life was full of tragedy and heartbreak.  Johnny Cash self-medicated for much of his musical career, saying: “You know, I've had my years in the wilderness, had my years when the demons crawled up my back. That was only when the drugs started, and they've gone away now...I had to finally accept it, you know, that God thought there was something worth saving, so who was I to say, 'You're wrong?.' I had to accept it and go along with it, and that's what I did." Cash said that he used drugs to escape but it devastated him, making it impossible to communicate with God.  Amphetamines and alcohol were literally killing him.  Cash admitted: “you're on the suicide track when you're doing what I was doing.”

 

   Through his addictions, many family members and co-workers were deeply hurt.  As part of his recovery, Johnny Cash worked hard to rebuild many destroyed relationships.  His son John Carter Cash said: “When Dad returned from the Betty Ford Center, he had a new lease on life, a new direction. Like the Apostle Paul, the scales were pulled from his eyes.”  As Cash sang about painful broken relationships, many identified with his struggles.  Bob Dylan said of him: “If we want to know what it means to be mortal, we need look no further than the Man in Black.” Cash was described as the poet for the common person: the cotton picker, the gravedigger, the roughneck, the coal miner, the train engineer, the lumberjack, the spike driver.

      Cash's music spoke up for the voiceless, the rejected, the abandoned, and the prisoner.  Who can forget when he did a live album in Folsom Prison? Time Magazine said that “Cash and his songs are rooted in the basic of country life: the land, lost loves, wanderlust, the seasons, lonely trains hooting across the still prairie night, preachers, prison and Sweet Jesus and home sweet home."

     A major part of his recovery was the relentless love of his wife June Carter Cash. Johnny Cash

said of June: “She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself...She's always been there with her love and it certainly made me forget the pain for a long time many times.” June often flushed his drugs down the toilet, and prayed for him when he was near death with an overdose.  She and Johnny’s mother were there waiting for him when he pulled out of a suicidal tailspin at Nickajack Cave near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

     Another key to Johnny Cash’s recovery was the loyal friendship of Billy Graham.  John Carter said: "When my father fell short, he could always reach out to Billy Graham.  Billy didn't judge my father.  He was there as his friend unconditionally.  Billy would lift him up, support him and say, 'You can do this. Stand back up. You know who you are.'”  He and June would eventually share and sing at nearly three dozen Billy Graham Crusades in front of nearly two million people.

Many people don’t know that Cash wrote a novel about the apostle Paul, saying: “If God could embrace an avowed and bloodthirsty enemy of his son Jesus Christ, he'd make a place for Johnny Cash."  Few were aware that he was an ordained minister, even performing weddings, including  one for his daughter Kathy.  Johnny Cash commented: “The Master of Life's been good to me...He gives me strength to face past illnesses, and victory in the face of defeat.  He has given me life and joy where others saw oblivion.”

     In the last ten years of his life, Johnny Cash came back to his creative roots and was rediscovered by the younger generation of musicians.  Bono of U2 commented: "To me, Johnny Cash --with all his contradictions-- was a quintessential character of the scriptures, or at least of the characters in the Bible that interested me. If God had time for these flawed characters, then God had time for me.” Bono said that he would rather spend a day with Johnny Cash than a week with most other pop artists. Bob Dylan said: “Listen to (Cash) and he always brings you to your senses. He rises high above all, and he 'll never die or be forgotten, even by persons not born yet --especially those persons...” As an artist, Johnny Cash wanted to make records that made a difference. 

     Johnny Cash finished well.  His last producer Rick Rubin drew out that which was best and truest about Johnny Cash, particularly in the video  Hurt.  Cash noted: "Rick saw something in me that I didn't know was there anymore.” Johnny Cash rediscovered what made him tick musically. Rick Rubin commented: "When I asked artists what they admired about Cash, that's what they often mentioned --that vulnerable, hurt aspect, that man who wouldn't give up."  Bono said that Hurt was perhaps the best video ever made.  It was raw and real.  Cash’s unshakable faith in Christ shone through this remarkable video.  His daughter Rosanne commented: “It's so unflinching and

brave and that's what you are. I thought it was an enormously courageous . It was a work of art, excruciatingly truthful."

     My prayer for those reading this article is that we like Johnny Cash may finish well, that we may be creative and faithful until the end of our lives.

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

 -an article for the May 2014 Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

(1) Robert Hilburn, Johnny Cash: the Life ( Little, Brown & Company, New York, NY, 2013), p. 23.

(2) Hilburn, p. 104.

(3) Hilburn, p. 20.

(4) Reinhard Kleist,Johnny Cash: I See the Darkness (Abrams ComiArts, New York, NY, 2009), p. inside Cover

(5) Johnny Cash: My Mother’s Hymn Book CD and notes, p. 15.

(6) Cash by the Editors of Rolling Stone, edited by Jason Fine (Crown Publishing, New York, NY, 2004 ), p. 162-163.

(7) John Carter Cash , House of Cash: The Legacies of My Father Johnny Cash. ( Insight Editions , San Rafael , CA, 2011), p. 73.

(8) Cash, edited by Jason Fine, p. 205.

(9) Michael Streissguth, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: the making of a masterpiece (Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004),  pp. 13, 27.

(10) Hilburn, p. 363.

(11) Hilburn, p. 606.

(12) Hilburn, p. 370, p. 375.

(13) Hilburn, p. 506.

(14) John Carter Cash, p. 59.

(15)  Johnny Cash: American III: Solitary Man, 2000, CD liner.

(16) Cash, edited by Jason Fine, p. 139.;Hilburn, p. 538.

(17) Hilburn, p. 628.

(18)  Cash, edited by Jason Fine, p. 149.

(19) Hilburn, p. 546.

(20) Hilburn, p. 629.

(21) Hilburn, p. 603.

Love Broke Through at Christmas - Hird

The more I think about Christmas, the more convinced I am that Love always finds a way to break through. In the darkest of times, there is a breaking in of light, a making of a way where there is no way.

Billy Sunday grew up in a single parent home, before being sent to an orphanage at twelve years old. Billy ran away from the orphanage two years later and worked as a stable boy looking after Shetland ponies.

Baseball fascinated Billy. Despite his being struck out the first thirteen times at bat, Billy played professional baseball for eight years for Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. His remarkable speed in running the bases was his trademark.

One evening, after a night of drinking with his baseball teammates, Billy attended a renewal service. Billy’s life was powerfully transformed, so much so that he became a full-time worker in 1891 for the YMCA. Love broke through. An ordained Presbyterian minister, Billy was one of the first clergy to make use of this amazing ‘new’ medium of radio.

Billy would sometimes have a baseball game with those attending before proceeding to hold a renewal service. Sometimes during a sermon he would dive across the stage and visually slide into home plate. Then he might stand up and challenge men to ‘come up to the plate’, to stand up for their wives, children, church and country. Billy broke the stereotype that church is only for women and children. He strongly challenged men to play their part, to be part of God’s team, to get involved. Love broke through for many families attending Billy Sunday’s meetings.

During Billy’s lifetime, over one hundred million people heard him speak, more than any other preacher to that point. Billy often spoke without any PA system. Over 1.25 million people publicly responded to Billy’s challenge to dedicate their lives to Christ, to ‘come up to the plate’ and stand up for their families and God. Historians describe Billy Sunday as an early 20th Century Billy Graham. Billy Graham just turned 90 years old. My hunch is that most of us have heard Billy Graham, either in person or by TV. Ironically Billy Graham gave his life to Christ at a meeting that had been originally founded by Billy Sunday.

Through Billy Graham and Billy Sunday, love has broken through for countless ten of millions of families. This Christmas, as you think about the simplicity of Christ in the manger, may love break through for you and your family members.

The Reverend Ed Hird
Rector, St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver, BC
Anglican Coalition in Canada
http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/cr0812.html

-an article previously published in the Dec 2008 Deep Cove Crier