Hope for the Troubled Heart: Finding God in the Midst of Pain
By Billy Graham
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About this ebook
What hopeless situation troubles your heart? The death of a loved one? The memories of childhood abuse? The diagnosis of terminal illness? The strain of financial failure? A stormy marriage? A body wracked by pain? A lonely sense of emptiness? Into your hopeless situation comes beloved evangelist Billy Graham bearing God's gift of hope, one of the strongest "medicines" known to humanity, an amazing resource that "can cure nearly everything."
Filled with unforgettable stories of real-life people and irrefutable lessons of biblical wisdom, Hope for the Troubled Heart inspires and encourages you with God's healing and strengthening truths. It shows you how to cope when your heart is breaking, how to pray through your pain, how to avoid the dark pit of resentment and bitterness, and how to be a comforter to others who hurt. You'll be reminded that "before we can grasp any meaning from suffering we must rest in God's unfailing love." And you'll find the "joy to be discovered in the midst of suffering."
Here you'll learn how hope helps troubled hearts find peace.
Billy Graham
Billy Graham (1918–2018), world-renowned preacher, evangelist, and author, delivered the Gospel message to more people face-to-face than anyone in history and ministered on every continent of the world in almost 200 countries and territories. His ministry extended far beyond stadiums and arenas, utilizing radio, television, film, print media, wireless communications, and thirty-three books, all that still carry the Good News of God's redemptive love for mankind. Engraved on a simple fieldstone in the Memorial Prayer Garden where he is buried at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, these words exemplify how the man and the minister wished to be remembered: "Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ."
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Hope for the Troubled Heart - Billy Graham
HOPE FOR THE
TROUBLED HEART
BILLY GRAHAM
1HOPE FOR THE TROUBLED HEART
© 1991 by Billy Graham
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without written permission from the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For more information, please e-mail [email protected].
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. Those marked ASV are from The American Standard Version of the Bible, © 1901. Those marked KJV are from the King James Version. Those marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Those marked PHILLIPS are from The New Testament in Modern English, by J. B. Phillips, published by The Macmillan Company, © 1958, 1960, 1972. Those marked TLB are from The Living Bible, copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Ill. Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Graham, Billy
Hope for the troubled heart / Billy Graham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8499-0702-9 (HC)
ISBN 978-0-8499-1137-8 (TP)
1. Theodicy. 2. Consolation. I. Title.
BT160.G66 1991
248.8'6—dc20
91–27705
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 12 BTY 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Foreword
1. World in Pain
Pain of Wars
Pain of Lawlessness
Pain of Economic Collapse
Pain of Family Failure
Pain of a Ravished Earth
Pain of Affluence
Seen or Unseen Pain
Me? What For?
Mirror of Despair
Walking Through the Rubble
2. His Unfailing Love
What Is God Like?
That Amazing Love
Like Father, Like Son
How Can We Comprehend His Love?
What God’s Love Can’t Do
No Place to Hide
3. Into Each Life Some Rain
Who Said Life Was Fair?
The Popularity Cult
The Cost of Discipleship
Gretchen’s Story
Cross-Bearers with Long Faces
Take Heart!
Suffering Is Not in Vain
4. Pain in Paradise
The First Sinner Commits the First Sin
The Way It Was
The First Perfect Relationship
Satan’s Tactics
Beginning of Sorrow
What Is This Thing Called Sin?
One Crisis After Another
Confusion of Good and Evil
Pain in Paradise: Suffering at Home
5. Why Jesus Suffered
God Joined Us
The Cross: Symbol of Suffering
All Signs Point to the Cross
Is God on Trial?
6. Who Sinned?
Who Needs Job’s Friends?
Mistaken Thinking About Suffering
The Trials Come
God Tells Us Our Faults
Stronger Medicine
Sex: Sin and Not Sin
7. Why God’s Children Suffer
Tactical Errors
Because We Are Human
Because We Sin or Disobey God
To Discipline Us
Can We Profit from Pain?
To Lead Us to the Bible
To Deepen Our Fellowship with God
Suffering Teaches Us Patience
8. What Do I Do When I Hurt?
Resentment Is a Killer
Suffering with a Sigh
It’s All in the Attitude
Closer My God to Thee or Farther Away?
Rewards Here and Later
9. When Your Heart Is Breaking
Many Faces of Grief
Wounded Hearts
Many Faces of Persecution
Can You Relate to Paul?
The Pain of Personal Failure
10. The Fourth Man in the Fire
A Book of Promises
God Promises Us a Refuge
He Is Our Shield and Our Refuge
God Is Our Strength
He Promises to Shepherd Us
When Jesus Was Jenny’s Shepherd
He Promises to Provide Superabundantly
When Do We Need Him?
God Promises to Send His Angels
He Walks with Us Through the Fire
11. How to Pray Through the Pain
Our Prayer Model
A Friend Who Cares
Pattern for Prayer
The Power of Prayer
Pray, Don’t Panic
Creative Silence
Prayer Is a Place in Your Heart
Thy Will Be Done
12. Storing Up for the Storms
What Would You Do?
Will We Escape Religious Persecution?
Persecutions of the Heart
God’s Storehouse
Take Your Bible off the Shelf
Be a Prayer Warrior Before the Battle Begins
Practice the Presence of Christ
Family Power
13. How to Help the Hurting People
Are We Approachable?
Are You Available?
Don’t Add to the Hurt
Bear One Another’s Burdens
Pray for Those Who Hurt
Pious Platitudes Don’t Help
Who Are the Best Comforters?
14. Schoolroom for Heaven
I Don’t Want to Think About It
Is Your House in Order?
Golden Minutes of Opportunity
What an Opportunity!
What Is Death?
How Do We Know There Is Life After Death?
Death Is the Coronation of a Christian
Death Is a Rest
Death Is a Departure
Death Is a Transition
Death Is Different for the Believer
Jesus Gave Us the Key
15. No More Troubles
Where Is Heaven?
Beautiful Home and Gardens
Happiness Is Heaven
No Boredom
The Ultimate Family Reunion
The Head of the House
But I Love Earth
Heaven Is a City
Full Potential
Together Forever
The Final Victory
A Voice from Beyond
Notes
FOREWORD
In my travels over the decades, I have found that people are the same the world over. However, in recent years I find that there is an increasing problem that I would sum up in the word hopeless.
It may be because we get news of troubles, problems, disasters, wars, etc., instantaneously in comparison to years ago when it might have taken weeks, months, or even years to hear of an event. But there’s something else even more insidious. People in the most affluent societies are feeling this sense of despair and hopelessness.
Perhaps the greatest psychological, spiritual, and medical need that all people have is the need for hope. Dr. McNair Wilson, the famous cardiologist, remarked in his autobiography, Doctor’s Progress, Hope is the medicine I use more than any other—hope can cure nearly anything.
I remember years ago that Dr. Harold Wolff, professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College and associate professor of psychiatry, said, Hope, like faith and a purpose in life, is medicinal. This is not exactly a statement of belief, but a conclusion proved by meticulously controlled scientific experiment.
Hope is both biologically and psychologically vital to man. Men and women must have hope, and yet a great part of our world today is living without it. The apostle Paul wrote two thousand years ago to the Ephesians that the Roman civilization of his day was without hope.
This is like so much of our world today. We are trying to live normal lives without ultimate hope, and we are finding failures on every hand. I believe that Hope for the Troubled Heart, which I have written with the help of several other people, will not only be of help but will be life-transforming for many who may read it. I send it forth with a prayer that it will bring new hope to thousands of sufferers from this terrible disease of hopelessness.
This book has been written with the help especially of my longtime friend Carole Carlson; my beloved wife Ruth, who seems to have unlimited resources for every subject that I write on; my friend Millie Dienert, who was kind enough to go through the manuscript and make suggestions while on our way to Moscow recently; and to my wonderful, small staff at Montreat— especially Stephanie Wills, who typed and retyped changes in the manuscript. For their patience, I want to thank Word Publishing, who waited many long months while I finished the book in the midst of other pressing demands.
May God bless this volume to the encouragement of thousands and give hope to the despairing.
Billy Graham
Europe, Summer of 1991
1
WORLD IN PAIN
Voices from troubled hearts: Our home is a war zone! Don’t talk to me about international war. I want to know how we can find peace in our family!
. . . I’m a rape victim. How can I ever get over my memories, or my horrible fears?
. . . I’ve lost my job and may lose my home. Don’t tell me about Wall Street blues!
. . . How can I raise decent kids when they’re surrounded by bad influences?
. . . I’m more worried about what’s polluting the minds of my children. They’re the most endangered species!
. . . We have a nice home and cars—you’d think I would be happy. But I feel empty. I’m not sure of my husband anymore and I’m so lonely.
This is the generation that will pass through the fire. It is the generation . . . ‘under the gun.’ This is the tormented generation. This is the generation destined to live in the midst of crisis, danger, fear, and death. We are like a people under sentence of death, waiting for the date to be set. We sense that something is about to happen. We know that things cannot go on as they are. History has reached an impasse. We are now on a collision course. Something is about to give.
I wrote this in 1965.
At that time few of us thought the world could get much worse and survive. I was wrong. In many ways the world has gotten worse, and we have survived. But we are a world in pain—a world that suffers collectively from the violence of nature and man, and a world that suffers individually from personal heartache.
Because we have instant communication today, our planet has shrunk to the size of a television screen. Although husbands and wives, children and parents have trouble communicating, we can watch a war as it is happening before our eyes. A comfortable room can be turned into a foreign battlefield or a street riot with the push of a button.
Our children have grown and married and we now have (at last count) nineteen grandchildren. I cannot promise them that this present world will get better. With all my heart, I would like to protect them from pain. But what I see is a universal malaise which affects civilization, giving me little hope that man alone can change the course of human events to make a better world.
There have been dazzling achievements in the years since my children were small. Man has landed on the moon, and Patriot missiles have intercepted and destroyed incoming ballistic warheads. From world records in sports to VCRs and microwave ovens, this has been a period of great scientific change.
But how far have we come? Are we better off in the nineties than we were in the sixties? In 1965 I said that most of the current experts, analysts, philosophers, and statesmen agreed that man is sick. Some of them believed we had already passed the point of no return. Has the patient improved or is the diagnosis terminal?
PAIN OF WARS
We are told by historians that peace has never been achieved at any time in history. Since the early eighteenth century, the world has known only eleven years in which there have been no wars. Even during those eleven years, there may have been small undetected wars in out-of-the-way places in the world.
In 1982, I was invited to address a peace conference in Moscow. After much agony, seeking advice from different people that I trust, but primarily the advice of Scripture, I decided to go. I took a great deal of criticism, but God used it to open many doors in Eastern Europe, which I believe was a contributing factor to the vast changes in the Soviet Union. The speech that I gave there, which was based on the teachings of Scripture concerning peace and war, was quoted over and over throughout the Eastern world.
The United Nations proclaimed 1986 as the International Year of Peace. What happened? The world responded with more than a hundred wars, according to the Center for Defense Information in Washington.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that the absence of peace may be the norm, rather than the exception, one newsman said in December 1989, Peace on earth seems more possible now than at any time since World War II.
This was a hopeful note in a war-weary world, but since then we have had the Persian Gulf War and many other little wars.
Augustine, in the fourth century, believed that achievement of an absolute state of peace on earth was impossible and that war would always claim its place. The weight of history favors Augustine’s view over that of the optimistic newsman.
PAIN OF LAWLESSNESS
Violent crime, often linked with the war against drugs, has accelerated. From every city in the world come stories of drug-related shootings, stabbings, and assaults. A doctor in a Detroit hospital said that the saddest casualties are children. We have a whole generation of human beings within this urban area who could be so productive and helpful to humanity but are being lost. We have kids thirteen and fourteen years old who are as hardened as anyone in a penitentiary. Look into their eyes, and you see these cold blank stares, void of most moral values.
¹
In Los Angeles, police make drug arrests at a rate of over a thousand a week—and that’s less than one-fourth of what they think the real story is. Despite the passage of tough anti-drug laws and police dragnets, street crime, much of it drug-related, continues to surge. The nation’s violent-crime rate rose 10 percent in the first six months of 1990. Murders were up 8 percent in the first six months of the year and armed robbery rose 9 percent.
² An FBI report showed that in the last few years, arrests for drug-abuse violations rose dramatically and dangerously.
I love New York and have many friends there, but the stories from that city are heartbreaking. It is reported as having 500,000 drug abusers, an amount almost equal to the population of Boston. In 1952, the city had 8,757 robberies. In 1989 there were 93,387! U.S. News & World Report stated in 1990, Twenty-one cabbies were murdered this year, girls were raped and then thrown off rooftops, a boy was tied up and set afire, and four small children were shot to death in drug wars within three weeks.
³
Lawlessness is not confined to the city streets. Most law-enforcement officers say the most dangerous calls are those related to domestic arguments. Beatings, rapes, and murder are also happening behind the white picket fences of our suburbs and small towns.
Random violence, without any provocation or reason, is everywhere. No one is safe. We are a nation living behind fences and bars—not only in America, but also in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and many other countries.
PAIN OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
Fraud is rampant wherever we are. In the financial world, the cheating touches many of our pocketbooks. When a large savings-and-loan institution collapsed, the American taxpayers probably ended up paying some $2 billion in additional taxes.
Real estate values have so many ups and downs that the financial institutions struggle with bad loans. Is there any doubt that we are a nation in debt?
Part of our problem with debt is that we have confused needs with wants. Yesterday’s luxuries are today’s necessities.
One of Wall Street’s most notorious insider traders summed up this materialistic idolatry in a speech to graduate business school students when he claimed, Greed is good for you.
It wasn’t so good for this man, who soon found himself the target of federal indictments for alleged wrongdoing.
Dark Mood,
announced a Wall Street Journal headline. The infection spreads, as crisis feeds on itself and fears are expressed for everything from bank failures to global financial panic.
PAIN OF FAMILY FAILURE
No subject is closer to my heart than the family. Sometimes I feel that my heart will break when I see the results of divorce, infidelity, and rebellion. The moral foundation of our country is in danger of crumbling as families break up and parents neglect their responsibilities. Isn’t it ironic that people cheer and clap for couples who have been married for