"Let's Go!"

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I wanted another book to read, so went searching the shelves in the office. Franklin Graham’s book Living Beyond the Limits “A Life in Sync with God” caught my eye. In the prologue he talks about how he was reluctant to surrender to God because he thought Christianity was boring. “that it would mean living by other people’s dull rules, that it would be, in a sense, a living death”(p. XI). He writes about wanting to be in complete control of his life; wanting “to live hard, fast, and free, to experience life on the edge” (p. XI). But after finding that the excitement was only temporary, he was left with an emptiness; a void.


As Franklin began meeting people who lived exciting lives - “without a shallowness that plagued (his) own” (p. XII),  he was drawn to “want what they had” (p. XII). Finally, he gave his heart to the Lord and soon learned that he could live an adventurous life, but “do so for a cause bigger than (himself), to help others”. (p. XIII)

He ends the prologue by writing “instead of joy and fulfillment, many people feel exhausted and depressed. They have lost hope and settled in for a tiresome and mundane life. Something is missing. Their compass is out of calibration and is beyond its boundaries. Their lives are not in sync with God” (p. XV).

He then asks, “Do you feel out of sync?” (p. XV) This is something to pause and consider before reading on. . .

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Franklin Graham’s first chapter, “Facing Your Fears” reads like a spy novel. My heart was racing a bit as I read the account of his trip to civil war torn Angola, Africa in the early eighties. Each step of that trip was a test of his faith for sure as his life was very much at risk several times in that week-long experience. The friend who initially invited him to Angola had the motto, “Let’s Go!” While Franklin was a bit shaken up, he writes that “God used these brave men to teach me about living beyond the limits of fear by trusting the Lord and giving Him room to work, even when the road seems uncertain and is laden with devastating possibilities” (p. 19)

In facing his fears, Franklin says “if we let fear get the upper hand, it will paralyze us, make us ineffective, and cause us to miss what God has planned for us” (p. 19) This fear doesn’t just keep us from doing dangerous things, like Franklin’s trip to Angola. Sometimes our fear of what others will think about us or say to us keeps us from following God’s will for our lives. We fear sharing our faith with those in our sphere of influence because they might challenge us or ask a question we can’t answer. We resist ministry opportunities because we fear part of the job description. We need to remember that anything God calls us to He will also equip us for; just like He did for those we read about in the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11. Hebrews 13:6 reminds us that the Lord is our Helper and we should not be afraid.

“Fear can (also) be the result of losing our focus” (p. 20). If we allow our minds to dwell on the fear, it will grow and overtake us. Isaiah tells us that we will experience peace if our mind is focused on God; if we trust in God (26:3). We must train ourselves to take our concerns to the Lord in prayer as well as spend time in God’s Word, meditating on and memorizing Scripture. Recalling to mind Bible verses will distract us from the fear we are experiencing.

This chapter is a challenge to adopt the motto “Let’s go!” and to see what God will do. I think our lives will be much more satisfying if we live by faith, following God’s leading and trusting Him to provide for all our needs. Let’s “watch God take us beyond what we could have ever humanly imagined” (p. 21)