Disciplines of God shape lives, strengthen souls

At just after 5 p.m. EDT on June 14, 2007, Ruth Bell Graham died at her home in Montreat, N.C. Ruth was born in Kiangsu, China, where her parents were serving as medical missionaries. She was a mother of five, an author and poet, had founded a children’s health center, and was once co-awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

But most people knew about Ruth Graham because of her marriage to Christian evangelist Billy Graham.

For more than 63 years Ruth Bell Graham was Billy Graham’s faithful and supportive companion. She traveled with him, encouraged him, and weathered the storms of life with him. He often spoke of her lovingly and, along with their five children, he was at her bedside when she died.

What many people do not know is that Ruth only came into Billy Graham’s life because of a broken engagement that he had earlier experienced with a young woman named Emily Cavanaugh. A dark-haired college classmate who initially agreed to Billy’s proposal, Emily later changed her mind because she was uncertain that he would ever amount to much. At that point Billy had not yet formulated his life’s goals, and she was not inclined to wait for him to do so.

The broken engagement was difficult for Billy to accept. He wrote to a friend that “all of the stars [had] fallen from [his] sky.” For months he agonized, but eventually came to a point when he was able to pray, “Lord, if I’m never to get Emily, I’m going to follow You. You can have all of me from now on. I’m going to follow You at all cost.”

God accepted the offer, and included Ruth Bell in the deal. From that moment on, there was never any doubt that Ruth was the best possible mate for him. Sometimes the “B” in Plan B stands for “better.”

The human author of Hebrews wrote: “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”

Appreciating the discipline of God involves more than just hanging tough in trying times. Most trials don’t last forever and many times a trial can actually “make” a person if it doesn’t “break” them. But that’s a principle that works for skeptics as well as for believers. The promise in Hebrews offers much more than a reward for human grit. It involves circumstances that are divinely ordered. And it is the exclusive entitlement of those who choose to trust and obey God in all of life.

Wise Solomon put it this way: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

“The Gulag Archipelago” is a powerful modern-day classic by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was published in the West in 1973 and its title essentially means “prison island.”

Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918. He never knew his father, who died just before his birth. For years he and his mother lived in squalor. Then, at the age of 35, he was exiled to hard labor and brutal treatment in a series of prison camps for expressing his views on communism. His experiences were horrible by all civilized standards.

Finally, in 1956, Solzhenitsyn was released. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. At some point along the way he had turned to Christianity, and he eventually came to a point where he was even able to say, “Thank you, prison, for being in my life.” Amazingly, God had worked his awful ordeal for the good.

On the bedroom wall of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th century Reformed British preacher, was a plaque that framed the words of God in Isaiah 48:10: “I have chosen (tested) thee in the furnace of affliction.” Spurgeon wrote, “It is no mean thing to be chosen of God.” “God’s choice makes chosen men choice men …. We are chosen, not in the palace, but in the furnace. In the furnace, beauty is marred, fashion is destroyed, strength is melted, glory is consumed; yet here eternal love reveals its secrets, and declares its choice.”

The Rev. Daryl E. Witmer is founder and director of the AIIA Institute, a national apologetics ministry, and associate pastor of the Monson Community Church. He may be reached on the Web at AIIA.ChristianAnswers.Net or by e-mail at AIIAInstitute@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.