JIM HENDRICKS: Billy Graham lived life just as he was

Billy Graham was always a bit of an imposing figure to me.

When the Billy Graham Crusade came on TV, I knew I was going to be watching it for at least three reasons.

First, my Mama and Daddy thought he was a good man and a good preacher and were of the considered opinion that what he had to say about things was important.

Second, all three of the commercial broadcast channels we could pick up with our aerial usually had the Billy Graham Crusades on them anyway, so the only way you could not watch it was to turn to the public broadcasting channel, which, as a youth, I avoided like the plague, or turn off the TV altogether.

Third, I wasn’t sure what God looked like, but I was convinced that Billy Graham was in the mold. Rather than the robed guy with the white flowing beard touching Adam’s finger on the roof of the Sistine chapel, it seemed to me it was much more likely when you got to the Pearly Gates, you were going to find out he had wavy combed-back hair, piercing eyes and a Carolina accent that carried some serious authority with it.

Which is why, even though I often would find ways to duck out early when our Baptist church in Newton had revivals, I didn’t skip too many times when Billy Graham was on TV in a stadium full of people. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, they’d be testing you on at the admissions gate on the Great Getting Up Morning, but I figured it might be something that came up during one of his Crusade sermons, so I decided it’d be best to make sure that base was adequately covered.

To this day, I can’t hear the hymn “Just As I Am” sung without thinking back to a Billy Graham Crusade.

There are things in life that you feel will go on forever, even though, deep down, you know they won’t. Billy Graham always being around was one of those things. Even at the age of 99, his passing Wednesday caught me by surprise.

I think what I liked about Graham was he always seemed to stay above the everyday fray, those steely eyes firmly focused on a far-off horizon the rest of us had to squint to see. He was never caught up in the scandals that engulfed the Jim Bakkers, Jerry Falwells and Oral Robertses. Some have questioned his counseling of many powerful political figures, including every U.S. president from Truman to Obama, but they might want to remember that Christ hung out with some sketchy people, too, and even managed to make disciples out of some of them.

His son, Franklin Graham an evangelist in his own right whose Samaritan’s Purse organization was so vital in our area’s recovery from the 2017 storms and tornadoes, said something illuminating about that in a statement Wednesday on Twitter: “My father @BillyGraham was once asked, ‘Where is Heaven?’ He said, ‘Heaven is where Jesus is, and I am going to Him soon!’ This morning, he departed this world into eternal life in Heaven, prepared by the Lord Jesus Christ — the Savior of the world — whom he proclaimed for 80 years.”

Billy Graham was a man who knew where he was going. For those of us whose lives his words and deeds have touched over the years, it was a fortunate thing that it took him nearly a century to get there.

And when he got to his destination, I’m sure he stood there as he always did here. Just as he was.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @JimEHendricks on Twitter.