"A Divide Creek Moment"

“A Divide Creek Moment”

 

I recently read Billy Graham’s The Journey: How to Live by Faith in an Uncertain World. As he outlined the principles of godly living I was struck by a phrase and its variations which appeared several hundred times: “The Bible says…/The Bible tells us…” Through more than a half century of evangelistic work which took him to almost every part of the globe his preaching was punctuated with this same appeal to Scripture as “…the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes….” (Romans 1:16). I believe it’s his dependence on God’s Word that has kept him and his ministry scandal free and used of Him to bring hundreds of thousands to faith in Christ.

In his book Dr. Graham relates that as he was preparing for an intensive evangelistic campaign in Los Angeles a friend who had become skeptical of the Bible’s trustworthiness challenged him to re-examine his convictions surrounding its inspiration and authority. He wrestled with this question for months as he read and pondered Scripture. Finally, alone in the woods at a conference center he put his Bible on a tree stump and told the Lord that even though there were things in His Word he didn’t understand or couldn’t explain he accepted it as from Him by faith. And that commitment never changed throughout his 70+ years of serving God.

In the Canadian Rockies there’s a small stream called Divide Creek. It splits around a boulder—the water flowing to the left eventually empties into the Pacific while that going right winds up in the Atlantic. Billy Graham’s Divide Creek moment took place in a California forest in the late 1940’s and determined the direction of his life and ministry.

In the same way each of us has a Divide Creek moment (mine was in 1960 at a Christian camp in upstate New York when God called me to vocational ministry) which sets our life’s course. Whatever or whenever it might be it calls for a decision for “No one can serve two masters.” (Matthew 6:24). May you and I be able to say, “I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws…May your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.” (Psalm 119:30, 173).

 

Grace and Blessings!

Jim McMillan