At the end of World War II, our United States of America emerged as a worldwide standard-bearer for strength, peace and prosperity. Our soldiers came trekking back home by the thousands. When they got settled in, Stateside, it was time for most of those soldiers to resettle into civilian life.
On the heels of that war-torn 1940’s decade, the ’50’s came rolling in like a kindergardner on a Christmas tricycle. Within a few years there were babies popping out all over America.
I was one of them in 1951.
Along with the relief of no longer being bogged down in a world war, we Americans experienced a tidal wave of new technology, most notably that TV in the living room. Cars came rolling off Detroit assembly lines like gangbusters; the cotton was high and yo mama’s good lookin’. Peace and prosperity were bustin’ out all over.
Out in the midwest, the wheat crop was ripe for the harvest.
Yet there was another harvest taking place, a spiritual gathering. A North Carolina preacher caught a vision of that coming revival. Billy Graham equipped a team of Christians to travel across the nation and the world presenting the good news of Jesus Christ.
Ultimately, Billy and his team spent the rest of their lifetimes traveling our nation and the world on behalf of the only man in history who was tried and executed and then lived to tell about it.
And then there came a day when Billy was called home.
But hey! No worries.
There were plenty of his disciples still here on earth to take up the mantle of spreading that good news of victory over death.
Franklin Graham, Billy’s son, spent some of his youth in struggling, like most young people, with his identity. It took him a few years to figure out what he was supposed to do in the wake of his father’s incredible accomplishments. He knew that the worldwide harvest of believers was a phenom that had manifested because of a special time and place—a unique appointment in an unprecedented age of expansion. He knew he could not duplicate it. That had been his dad’s mission. But what was his?
Franklin eventually figured it out, with a little help from the man upstairs. What he did was this: he “put shoe leather” on the gospel.
At least, that’s what my long-time friend/pastor, Ben, calls it.
What that shoe leather phrase implies is this: he took his father’s life-work to the next level. Franklin did not just sit on his laurels. Nosiree.
He extended that evangelical platform from preaching to medical and disaster relief. Now it's gone worldwide antiviral. In fulfillment of Jesus' parable defining "who is my neighbor," Franklin began--and ultimately established-- Samaritan’s Purse, now a worldwide distributor of medical care, food, clothing and other essentials of human life.
Just this week, Samaritan’s Purse is sending emergency field hospitals, doctors, nurses and other helpers to Ukraine. I know this because my daughter is one member of that team.
https://www.samaritanspurse.org/article/pray-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine/
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