Anne Graham Lotz on Growing Up in Billy Graham's Home

[Music] welcome to the carrie new hoff leadership podcast on youtube my name is carrie newhoff and my goal is to help you lead like never before so what i do every week is i sit down with world class leaders and church leaders business leaders and i talked to them about what made them who they are and try to have the conversation with them that you would have if you got to sit down for lunch with them or have dinner with them or really got to spend some time with them so we go into the back story and we explore what made them who they are and some of the principles they've learned along the way so if you enjoy this episode i would love for you to like it to subscribe and also to share it with your friends and in the meantime here's today's episode and welcome to the podcast i'm so glad and honored to have you today thank you carrie it's my privilege my pleasure yeah and so much has changed in my lifetime your lifetime and certainly your father's lifetime i'd love to start just by talking about the things that have changed and the things that haven't changed so you teach the bible you have a message um what's changed in all of this and then what are you seeing changing i'd love just to to start with sort of the camera lens back a little bit on this conversation well change uh from from my father's generation yeah sure we can start there yeah and i think in my father's generation um in the 50s and the 60s even the 70s and i could be wrong kerry but i feel like there was more of a god got more attention more respect more more time and uh people were more involved in um you know just look at daddy's stadium meetings yeah but hundreds of thousands of people coming and really i don't know what revival would look like if it wasn't you know times square packed out or um you know the stadiums packed out or some of the things that that took place it was phenomenal and people giving their hearts to christ and and then somewhere carry between i guess daddy's generation and mine and the next one the fire that was lit um seems to have grown dim and and i don't know why that is um i have a daughter and three granddaughters and one of the things that we are very um engaged in right now is trying to get the the focus of young parents to pass on the truth that leads to faith in god's word to their children because i think a lot of christian parents they leave it up to church or leave it up to school and if if they don't get it there then they don't get it at home then then these kids um it's like the person i spoke to this morning that said she's 28 and she so many of people in her generation base their philosophy their decisions on emotion but they don't know the truth and so the enemy can exchange the truth for a lie and a lie for truth but if you don't know what the truth is you don't even know you've been deceived you know so so i feel like there's a falling away from the truth and are falling away from god's word and i'm speaking within the organized church and i know there's some great churches and i praise god for them but but i'm speaking generally across the board there's a falling away from the truth of god's word as though we can take it or leave it in fact i almost think that sometimes we act um like practical atheists as though god really isn't there and he's really not involved and he's really not going to intervene and he's not really going to hold us accountable and he won't really keep his promises and his word isn't you know you're just not sure it's true and it's for another time it's just it's stunning and and that's attitude within the church so that's a difference between i think my father's generation that took god more seriously and and i think my generation i've seen you know a lot of my friends who take god's word seriously but when it comes to the next generation and the next generation somehow we're not passing it on we're we're losing the next generation and and um i don't so much point my fingers at the church although i do but it's but i i look at the home and i look at the parents and they may be saying one thing but if they're not living it the kids won't buy it it's you know you have a rare window or we have a rare window in this interview this time together to think about your own spiritual formation and i always write questions this one isn't on the list but if you're open i'd love to know about spiritual formation in your home i mean you grew up as the daughter of billy and ruth graham and you know your dad was changing through god was using him to change lives throughout the world but i'd love to know like what were your earliest impressions of faith from the time you were a little girl you know the and it's hard to pull out one impression but i can tell you this carrie that my parents were the same behind closed doors as they were in public they genuinely loved jesus served jesus obeyed jesus wanted to grow in their knowledge of jesus their obedience to jesus that was not that was not ministry that was not for a platform that was who they were they were both my mother and father and my grandparents actually my mother's parents had been missionaries to china and my father's parents were from charlotte but my granddaddy started the rescue missions and uh did some other things pray that god would raise up an evangelist from the next generation from charlotte never knowing it would come from his own family so so there is a you know they're genuine they're authentic in their faith and so that probably would be the greatest impression but i'll tell you two things aspects of what my parents passed down to me that that has sort of crystallized i guess in the last few years but but my mother um i went to public schools and every morning before school she would gather anybody who was in the house into the kitchen and she would have prayer and bible reading and i never liked it because i was always in a rush trying to find my books trying to get out the door i didn't want to be late i had a test you know coming and and but what she taught me by example was the necessity of daily bible reading daily prayer when my daddy was home he led the devotions at night and he would open the bible and he would read a little bit and then we would talk about it you know and my mother would get so fed up because daddy would just get carried away and i loved it and what my daddy taught me was you you need to think about what you're reading you know it's not just that you read it and check it off so that you can say you read your bible today but you want to read it and and process um think through what you've just read and the combination of that has stayed with me um where i read my bible every day but and actually this is the first year i'm reading the one year bible which i actually don't like because i'm just reading to check it off yeah i know those boxes get addicting don't they september and i've just got a few more months to go but um but in the morning i get up and i just take a little paragraph of verses and ask myself what does it say and i list the facts what do the facts mean i take the facts and turn them into a lesson that i would want to learn and then take the lesson and put in the form of a question i would ask myself so that i'm thinking through what god says and listening for god's voice to speak to me personally and then whatever he says i have to do you know i follow through and sometimes it's a command sometimes it's a promise sometimes it's an encouragement sometimes it's a warning um but it's amazing the things that he has impressed on my heart in the morning like that but it but i go back to my daddy's example of reading the word and um and thinking about what i've read so that i don't just check it off although i love my mother's exam nobody loved her bible as much as my mother and um but it was just that regimen of the morning devotions when i was trying to pack up for school that that didn't resonate with me but the habit stayed and and the fact that you spend early morning time i do every day um but i read it to read my bible to think about what i've read um and my and i'll tell you this my mother in the fly leaf of my first real bible when i was baptized at the age of nine she and daddy gave me a bible navy blue leather schofield edition king james version you know and uh but in the front she said and she said this is your one sure god in an unsure world she said read it study it love it live by it and you'll find a verse for every occasion and um and i've that was when i was nine and i've taken her counsel and um believe it it was the wisest council she could have given me it is i'm 72 and it has been a foundation for my whole life so so um you know i praise god for the home in which he placed me and i'm sure there are many other things carrie that have impressed me and formed me and you know but but those are the ones that stand out thank you for letting us see that um i think we do have a lot of young parents a lot of young leaders listening so there's a lot of parallels they're trying to do what your mom and dad did with you and with your siblings and it's interesting you were saying i forget whether this was before we recorded or since the the mic was on but that people make emotional decisions today and you know as a dad myself my kids are in their 20s now i remember doing family devotions when nobody was into family devotions and you would assume that you know in billy graham's house everyone's going to sit there and pay attention and the whole deal can you speak to um you know that that tension of like trying to not not getting discouraged i'm sure your parents were very discouraged you weren't they didn't always have an attentive audience did they at times but um i don't think i never knew that they were discouraged that they were because they weren't trying to i don't think they were trying to impart something to me they were it was who they were and they were sharing it with me you know so one of the things that i did my husband and i did in our home which i don't know if it would help but but our family devotions we had um at dinner time over the supper table so so it wasn't a set aside time with the kids when they needed to get into homework and my kids are all athletes and so they're all in sports and everything but but even when we were um you know the thrust of a season i tried to make sure that at least every night we came together for dinner and some that took a lot of planning and organizing but um and and there's sometimes in a basketball season or something depending on when the games are you couldn't do that but sure the rule in our home was that we came together once a day for dinner and as we had dinner we would take a just a verse or two and discuss it and so it was uh it wasn't something that they had to do it was just it was part of our conversation and you know carrie now my children my son is 50 my my girls are um 48 45 and now i've got three grandchildren who are teenagers uh 18 17 and 14 and that's the way we still do our family time so when they come and they we we love to eat and i love to cook and so you know we have all these wonderful family dinners um and then we pull out god's word and then i'll share a verse or two with them and we'll discuss it and and um and it's really precious and all of my children and my grandchildren they love the lord they love the word they love to read it and it's not because they have to it's because through the word they know god and they come into that they draw closer to his heart they know him my granddaughters know how to pray get answers to prayer they've led some of their friends to christ it's um you know it's um if i could just say once once again the most important thing you can do is to be authentic yourself you cannot pass along your faith to your children um if it's not genuine if jesus isn't first in your heart in life you i don't think you can pass it on to them and um or it would be very difficult because then you're passing on a religion you know you're you're yeah i think sometimes you pass on who you actually are not who you think you are or say you are your kids can tell they can tell i i get that interesting you know just thank you for being so personal uh i really appreciate it but you're you're a lot of leaders are listening and they struggle with the same things you did your husband did trying to raise a family they're on the road a lot they've got a busy life your dad was gone a lot traveling around the world winning people to jesus and often you hear stories gordon mcdonald who i'm sure you know ordering your private world gordon's been on this podcast a few times and he talks about the the predominant image of his father he had is his dad walking away from him heading to the church and it's a very deep wound now gordon obviously has served the lord very faithfully for many years but i'm just wondering how how have you learned or how did you learn growing up to handle that tension of having parents who were very busy and a dad who is often away or even in your own situation with your kids because that's a very real tension for a lot of leaders i have some regrets from my 30s where i wish i was home more oh sure i i don't i think we would be dishonest as a parent if we didn't say we had no regrets yeah well i'd be lying oh my goodness i'll look back and just god's grace you know because i made so many mistakes there's so many things i wish i could do differently but but to go back to your question um my mother was very wise and when my daddy left home i never watched him walk out the door that i can remember she i would come back from school mother where is daddy well he's gone whatever but she she made um there was no big deal of daddy leaving at all now i'll take that back i know i took him to the airport a couple of times when i was a teenager but um but basically she ignored his goings but his comings were a big deal so as a little girl would go down the train station i'd put pennies on the track and have the train smash him when he came through and then daddy would greet us as he came down he always had a prize for us in his suitcase or something he just picked up in the airport somewhere but but his his comings were celebrated his goings were sort of ignored and i think that was a wise thing the other thing um if daddy had been a politician or if he had been a businessman i think i might have had resentment but because he was doing what he was doing with all of his heart i gave him up for that purpose it was you know i feel like it's one of the it was one of the things as i got older i could have articulated this way just one of the things i would lay down before jesus so that it was an act of worship to give daddy up and even in my heart you know um and god seemed to respond to that in psalm 27 10 it says um when your mother and father forsake you the lord will take you up and daddy didn't forsake me but he was gone it's estimated 60 of my growing up years and but i believe the lord took me up so that i have a a relationship with the lord god that i wouldn't have had i had a father you know like like my my husband was to our children so if daddy you had a nine-to-five job and he was there every night and every morning and you know but but he was gone for a week sometimes months at a time but i believe the lord just stepped in and my heavenly father became very personal very real to me and and i think that made up the difference and i'm going to tell you honestly that i can understand gordon mcdonald because there are wounds and i know my siblings have had wounds and i'll let them talk about it themselves you know but i but from for me i found if i was wounded i found my healing at the cross and i found my healing when i saw how much god loved me that he would give jesus to take away my sin and come live within me in the person of his spirit never to leave nor forsake me to guide me through life and and it's been a i've had a very personal intimate relationship with the lord for i guess since my baptism at nine you know i can um i didn't stray from him i haven't rebelled i've just been in love with jesus ever since i can remember and i i can't get enough of his word i still love his word because through his word i hear him speaking to me you know and um and i want to live my life for his glory so i so i say all that um just to say that that who you are um in your own relationship with god i think is what your children watch my mother has a little quip i'll tell you this you said that you can't teach your children to enjoy spinach if every time they see you eating yours you gag in other words if you know kids get it they watch you in the home and if you're not really loving jesus loving the word if they don't catch you on your knees in prayer if they don't overhear you sharing the gospel with the neighbor you know they're going to get the message that this isn't real this is just put on for others and um and they're going to reject it and i i this is a fascinating direction and um i imagine that people are thinking wow that's wonderful that it's true number two i hope that's true and number three it's really rare and how does that happen because almost everybody's got wounds and i'm sure you have some too but like to actually do you know how that deep relationship with god formed when you were a child it's just a really fascinating thing i think that's what a lot of us want for our kids and i think a lot of people have the story of either didn't have it and found it or had it kind of lost it went through a period of rebellion and then rekindled it at some other point in life i'd love to know how that was nurtured in you either through things you did god did your family did and because that's a really wonderful story well there are two things that come to my mind one is that i have been so wounded kerry that i've written a whole book on wounded and it's called wounded by god's people and and i go through there it's maybe four years old took me four years to write very hard to write and i go through and i don't list all the wounds because i don't want to wound people you know wounded people are wounders yeah yeah so but i understand wounds but i don't live there the way to freedom and peace is through forgiveness but we have to at least within the church forgive each other and love each other and move on and so when when you're wounded you just i i believe there is healing in fact crawford loretz uh who's a good friend he said that you know when jesus came to the upstairs room uh after the resurrection and he showed his hands in his side and thomas was there and he said put your hands and you know and and touch my wounds whatever and and crawford said that what jesus was showing them was that wounds can heal quickly you know he had just been crucified but but wounds don't have to take decades to wound you you can be you can be healed quickly but but i think you have to be willing to release the wound in in forgiveness of that person and then on top of that do something to bless the person who's wounded you and um so i've gotten a whole i've written a whole book on that so i understand wounds but i think also um and this is something you know i don't know how god you know just god's grace isn't it that he works in our lives like he does um and uh but i know i had grandparents on both sides um my mother's parents and my father's parents who prayed for me and my mother and daddy prayed for me and um and and for whatever reason god in his grace just drew me to himself and um you know and i can't do i can't i don't know that i can analyze that i would just encourage parents that god loves your children more than you do he wants them to love him more than you want them to love him and you set the example you put them first in your heart and life and then you pray and pray and pray you know that god would quicken them that the holy spirit would just soften their hearts and bring things their minds they would match it with what they see in your life and and jesus is alive and god is real and the bible is true um so you're not just teaching them and i keep using the word religion which to me is yeah god but you can't you know but but people substitute religion for the relationship that god offers through faith in jesus so so each person has their own choice and that would be i also wrote a little book called the daniel key which is just the choices that daniel made it's amazing when you go through his book you know because he was probably a young teenager when he was taken into captivity in babylon and then you see the first choice that we're aware of was when he chose not to defile himself with the king's food and and choice after choice after choice after choice he made um so that in the end he's maybe one of the greatest you know men in the old testament certainly one of the great prophets and and so choices are um to be taken very seriously and you know uh um and it's crushing as a parent when we see our children make wrong choices and i have a child who's made some really wrong choices and and i have and it's very hard to see a child on the brink and you call them back from it and they just go right on over but then you just you know so so my heart has been broken many times um just over choices that um one of my children in particular has made but i've also seen god's grace to redeem and to restore all three of my children now serve the lord involved in sharing the gospel one-on-one lead bible studies and um so i'm very thankful but it's been a journey i can tell you so i feel like for us the choices that that well for me for the choices that i made from the time i was baptized to start reading god's word to start serving him to start sharing who he is with my friends to you know all of that and then i i met my husband when i was 17 carrie i'm married when i was 18. he was 29. so um and that was a choice at the time that my mother and daddy fully supported um but but my husband danny lotz you know took over when i was 18 and he's such a strong man of god he was a leader's leader and so i think a lot of my you know formation we started a bible study together when we were newlyweds and offered them to the athletes at the university of north carolina so every sunday night we had the guys in i'd fix them an apple pie or a pound cake and they'd come and discuss the scriptures and and my husband was um he was just a strong leader he came from a pastor's home in new york city and um so that i know that had a lot of um just my relationship with my husband and who he who he was and the father he was to our children had great impact on me his family was fabulous i told him i'm marrying the first time for love the second time for love and for his family love the lotz family oh that's great anything else on either your family or family of origin it's just been i'm so grateful for the way you've just kind of opened up it's uh it's it's wonderful to see uh what what god was doing in your formation anything else that might be surprising it's like yeah people may not know this about either your parents or growing up or your family i don't know one thing that comes to mind is um my father was very affectionate and so for fathers out there who have daughters you know my my daddy when he was in his 80s even 90s still pulled me down on his lap you know would still i would go up to the house to see him and it would be when he was on a walker and he couldn't walk down the hall anymore but he'd sit in his chair and he'd just throw out his arms and and hold me for a while you know he he loved you would hold my hand and he would kiss my hand and kiss my cheek he he was um and i say that because even though i met danny at 17 and i'm married at 18. which seems like i was anxious to get out of home i wasn't and i wasn't ever boy crazy i wasn't you know because i felt like i had my father's love and attention and my father knew how to give me his full attention even though he had many things on his mind i'm sure and um you know now as i'm older i know more of what he was involved in but but he he developed a relationship with me and i'll tell you one of the things he did um we both love dogs actually we love animals but dogs and um so he always made sure i had a dog and uh and when i had a dog you know dive pneumonia at a dog dive with a snake bite i had a dog that turned mean and had to be but daddy would go with me to get the next dog you know so that we so it's one of the joys of my life was um when he turned uh actually was the year my mother went to heaven and for their anniversary which was a couple of months after her funeral i gave him a big golden retriever and um and it was so fun for me to be able to give him a dog after you know a lifetime of him giving me dogs but we shared that we we loved dogs we loved our animals we loved to hike uh every sunday afternoon would hike up to the ridge and so he so i'm trying to say he he found common ground with me he found things that he could do with me so that i felt special i felt loved by him i i didn't feel like one of the bunch you know i was one of the bunch but but he made me somehow feel expected would go out to supper he would hold my hand as we walked down the street and then of course as i got older he introduced me to the elevator operators and the hotel clerks and everybody this is my daughter this is my daughter that's my daughter and i realized later why he was doing all that yeah because he was so um so affectionate and demonstrative and um it was very precious and so to this day i miss my daddy's hugs and kisses and conversations um one day soon maybe i'll see him again so it sounds like he was very when he was home he was home he was focused he was is that is that so no uh well um focus he when i was growing up he we came home and he went on the golf course so okay that was the way he relaxed so and i never he never invited me on the golf course with him now my i don't think i don't know about my siblings my brothers maybe but um but i know i never that was his ghetto you know get away that's his way to unwind he'd just go play some golf gotcha yeah but he but when he was with me um and i guess maybe the you know he was back in his study but if i would go back to interrupt him he would give me his attention and um so so i think that it wasn't um focused the entire time he was thrown on his children it was just when he was with me i felt that i had his full attention whether we're hiking whether we're doing something with the dogs whether i went back to interrupt him about something whether um no i get what you're saying too and and i think that's an increasing challenge for people today particularly because our devices you know we're in a room but we're not really in a room you're paying attention to your daughter but you're not really paying attention to your daughter so you know just the way you described him i thought there was someone who wasn't like don't bug me i'm in the middle of writing a sermon or something like that yeah yeah i'm taking notes okay that's good those phones you know all my grandchildren they come they're not allowed to have them at the table because they all sit there and they're just i don't know what it is i've got a phone but i i don't i'm not glued to it like that but they are glued to it and um so for a parent to be glued to it and not give your children attention or tell them to put their phone down and you put your phone down and you give them your full attention i think that's you're missing something and the kids will find the attention from somewhere in somebody but um well i think i think what i'm picking up here and is i mean some of those stories are 50 60 years old and they're still impacting you as a woman at this stage in life like you know and and our stories do that they impact us for better or for worse and you are blessed to have a lot of for better stories that you're able to share which is which is wonderful i've got some worse ones but i'm not going to tell them [Laughter] don't we all don't we all yeah um man things have changed a lot and your father well his household name for the stadiums he filled etc uh i want you to reflect a little bit just on how um maybe sharing the message has changed the message hasn't changed but the methods maybe have changed a little bit any comments for leaders who are trying to do what you do teach the bible any advice you would give them um given where our culture has moved you know i think the methods have changed dramatically since march and i was talking uh to my daughter about this yesterday and my youngest daughter is just a terrific little bible teacher and she's been teaching seven years a group of women over the university of north carolina and chapel hill and now they've had to go by zoom you know they're doing it by zoom but but the potential for her bible study that she's been teaching she had maybe 70 or 80 women in it but but now the potential is to um grow way beyond that she had a girl joining from brazil she had coaches wives from waco texas she had coaches wives from the colts she had a group from minnesota i mean they're just you know so that so um but her bible teaching is uh solid it's exposition it's um it's she did genesis one she's starting in genesis and she just did genesis one teaching about the creator and who he is and and the impact um it has on our lives today what it means that's um in the beginning god created everything and the spirit of god hovered over the face of the deep end god said you know and what does that mean and and it's it's um it's thrilling because she has a whole i mean from girls who are 18 in fact two of her daughters are in it so they're 17 and 18 all the way up to women who are in their 80s or maybe even 90. in fact my other daughter's nine-year-old neighbor joined yesterday for the first time and um so the so the the method of getting it out i think zoom you know the lockdown to me carrie has been a blessing it's been a huge blessing i have loved being at home i've gotten more work done i without the traveling and the packing up and unpacking all that crazy stuff and and for instance i did a message for the india asia diaspora and the guy that asked me to do it had been on the committee when i went to hyderabad two years ago and spoke to the national day of prayer and um and he's put this thing on he said normally they have it's an annual conference they have a thousand um but this time they put it on zoom and so he booked it for a thousand and he had um that booked out and then he opened up to 3000 that booked out then he just put it live on facebook and youtube and it just went viral and so so that's you know what what the enemy means for evil god means for good and the lockdown is like putting us all in home churches and if we're just creative and think of how we can use the technology to um you know get god's word out just make sure you're giving out god's word you know and i think it should be relevant so um i was in a church once with a young pastor who never ever related what he was teaching he was a good little preacher but never related what he was teaching to what we were reading in our newspapers what was happening in our city and it was just so disconnected you know and now i'm listening to a pastor who uh takes the world events and he just brings him right home and tells you what time it is and you know you just it's like he's on fire but but it makes it so relevant um so i think the god's word doesn't change and i think giving out um you know learned of to present god's word up my desires that i would give out god's word so that people never mind and lots but they would want to hear they would hear god speaking through the message and and that's a work of the holy spirit but he works through the word of god um so so but i've loved you know the zoom the videos um i just did a video of the jerusalem prayer breakfast has decided to go virtual this year they're going to have it live two years ago i spoke at the jerusalem prayer breakfast four times and um and this year just last week the albert vexler who's the president in charge of it asked me if i would just bring a greeting and a message for this year's virtual event so i've already done that send it to them by video they can put it in the way they want you know so so to me sitting right here where i am talking to you god has opened up the whole world and so i just thank him at my age and all my health things i i thank the lord i'm where i am today but he's made it easier on me physically to still do ministry you know but um so so my methods my my teaching has not changed right applications of course do but but the method of getting it out is um incredible and so i just you know praise god and i'll tell you this um if we can watch what god's doing in our lives and not get so fixed on the way we've always done it um when my husband um began to get um his health was declining he had adult one diabetes and he was on dialysis and had been for three years and then i just saw him declining to the point i didn't want to leave him anymore and then i felt god spoke to me from isaiah 26 that i was to come inside and close the door and i knew he was telling me that i was to stay home with my husband so i'm i made sure i finished out my commitments last year i cancelled everything else i i didn't accept any more engagements i just stayed home to take care of my husband but at the same time god impressed on me that he wasn't moving me out of ministry so then it's like all right so if i'm going to stay home take care of my husband how do i do ministry without being on the road so so we gave our attention to radio so that i have radio spots you know sprinkled all over every day and then a radio program once a week uh 30 minute radio program and then social media and we hired a social media person who has you know helps me with the instagram facebook um all that kind of stuff so that it's so it's incredible we were all poised so that my husband went to heaven five years ago and um but but during that three year period as we were building our social media presence and then when he went to heaven and then when i um was diagnosed with cancer i had a platform out there that was um you know we had been building and and it was amazing so that there wasn't transition sort of you know i'm still doing what i've always done but now social media zoom videos um audios just help you do what you've always done but without them running around yeah they're running around i i flew 150 i'm sure nothing compared to what you've done over your life but i've flew over 100 000 miles last year doing speaking and being grounded for six months it's uh it's actually been incredible i want to talk about that a little bit how this how you're going to do things differently health being let's just assume that's not a factor but you could go back to normal there's a vaccine because one thing you're you're touching on is something a lot of guests have touched on this year we had nikki gumbellon who was totally opposed to virtual alpha until kovid and now he's like i think it's the best thing ever like people are coming to faith like he said i i was converted and if you look at a lot of people would say about your father's ministry i've read this from numerous things that your dad was one of the first people to take advantage of mass media right like television and radio and the ability not only in stadiums but also through broadcasting to reach millions of people around the world and who did so effectively you know the reformation happened because in large measure the grace of god but also the printing press and the first expansion of the new testament church the gospel in new testament times was facilitated by roman rhodes if roman rhodes the printing press mass media and now you have the internet which many would say is much bigger than even television or radio i would agree with that um how and yet a lot of pastors are just running back to try to open the buildings and going i don't know about that whole online thing so we're trying to address that on this podcast and and through the things i do what would all things being equal let's assume there's a vaccine you can jump on a plane you can go anything would you change your approach based on what you know now uh since march 2020 would you say oh perhaps we could have a bigger impact would you go back to normal what would you do uh when the world recalibrates uh you know this is hard to explain but um i don't set my agenda i don't decide uh where i'm going how i'm going to do ministry i just truly carry follow jesus okay so if he tells me um that and i want you to speak it's you know whatever and it's going to be in new york city in two months i'll be there like i'm i'm going to washington dc you know next week um for the return and and i've really wrestled with him over that because i wasn't sure with all the unrest in the streets and the covet and all that if i was supposed to be on the mall for this big event but but he's just in my spirit he's letting me know that's where he wants me to be so that's where i'm going to be and um so i don't i don't predetermine that i'm not going to go here or i'll stop traveling there or i'm going to go right back to you know getting on a plane and going to wherever the invitations come in i prayerfully go over them um i turn down probably nine out of every ten you know but but then the ones you feel your spirit is quickened and you feel like god would have you do then a lot of them this year in fact almost all of them have gone virtual you know where i was booked for governor's prayer breakfast or um special events or and and they've just gone virtual so so i've been able to do for them what um i promise to do but just by video or by a live stream so so i'll just i'll take it as the lord gives it to me i i genuinely want to serve him and i don't want to make up a ministry for myself do you know what i mean yeah that's really fair i appreciate that so i i just i don't have any goals i don't have any agendas people say and where you're going to be five years from now i have no idea i hope i hope i'm in heaven because i hope jesus is coming back but um but i but i just sort of live my life if i can say sort of loosely and just follow him where he leads i do i'll tell you this when i make a commitment um i don't make a commitment until a year in advance but when i make the commitment i keep it yeah and um the exception to that was when i made commitments and then i was diagnosed with cancer and i had to cancel that whole stream of things but everybody understood you know it was real people were so wonderful and they were really really dear but it was it was very very very hard for me to um not fulfill those commitments because that's just when i give my word i give my word i hear what you're saying yeah how i'm curious you know nine out of ten i can understand you're probably deluged with invitations but uh when you say you follow jesus and you listen to his word i'm always curious how how do you discern that this is a yes what is do you have a process is it a feeling is it what what is that like for you um you know it's hard to describe yes it can be when i get the invitation and sometimes i can decide fairly quickly sometimes it takes a week or more sometimes longer but i pray about it and it's and there's just i can't describe as a quickening in my spirits sometimes it's a word from from his word that confirms it but um and and some of them just go flat you know it's just invitation it's just cold and i just feel like that's not something you would have for me um and i have to be careful because i i'm a shy timid person and um and to get up on some of these platforms is terrifying to me so there are times that i would want to say no in my flesh and um and the lord you know i feel that quickening and you know this is something i have for you and um and so and one of those this past year was in uh february i'll tell you what the lord looking back the lord jammed my february one thing after another and janet partial had called and asked me if i would give the closing message and are the national religious broadcasters and she did that only like i think a month before and so i don't know if somebody backed out on her or she hadn't been able to fill that slot or or maybe she's just so busy and whatever but um and because it was janet i i didn't really even pray about it i said i would do it but i can tell you i was so terrified that um and i've done it before this may be the fourth and fifth time i've seen but that is such an impactful audience that it was very scary and uh and then the lord just quickens me i probably feel scared to death until the time i stand on the podium and as soon as i open my mouth it's like the peace comes and the message is released and i'm good you know so um so i so i just i don't know if that's helpful now that's really helpful yeah the fear has never really gone away has it no no especially especially for some of these um major things on video um i don't have as much fear for some reason especially when it's taped because i have the fallback i can cut that out right yeah but um but um yeah i feel very i'll i'll tell you what what's gotten me through the cancer and all that just a strong sense of purpose uh god gave me the verse and my husband went to heaven for me to live is christ and to die is gain and then the next verse says but if i'm here if i'm left here in the flesh then it means more fruitful labor for me and um and i feel like god has has me here for a purpose that i have fruitful labor to um do for him and i don't want to miss a thing that he has for me uh i'm wanting to go to heaven and have a an abundant entrance into his kingdom so um so i you know i um i don't want to waste my time i don't want to um mother told me that god doesn't give you strength for things he hasn't called you to do so when i get this really tired and feel like i can't do it then i think oh my goodness am i just over committed um and it's not so much the big things it's all the little the office things yeah the administration that that comes with all that so you got a brand new book uh it's called the light of his presence prayers to draw you near to the heart of god and i think one of the surprises you say that prayer has been one of the great struggles of your christian life um can you talk about that i've struggled with prayer i always think well this is something i'm not particularly gifted in i do it but i never feel great about it talk about what what's one of the great challenges with prayer in your life well there um and i can identify with what you've just said um i've there are three areas that have uh constantly been a battle for me um one is content just what do you say and um and one is concentration i can't tell you and i think some of that is actually demonic i think there's a spiritual warfare when we go to set aside time to pray and then we think about what we're gonna wear this afternoon we're thinking about what we're gonna fix for supper tomorrow night it's just and maybe i mean your thoughts would be different but mm-hmm no they're all all over your podcast next week it's a good way for me to create a to-do list is to pray yeah you know well and some people say to take a pen and paper into your prayer time you know so that if things come to your mind the lord may be giving you some direction but and the other thing is consistency yeah the consistency has been greatly helped by this lockdown because i've i've never been more consistent in making time and and it's neat because i've had had the time to do it because i'm not running around so um and i still have a schedule and i still have a lot of deadlines and things but um but the consistency has been wonderful the content and i think i put this in the forward to the book i'm not sure but but sometimes um to help me with content i've written down my prayers and i write them out um and i think of david you know who wrote out his prayers where would we be if we didn't have the psalms you know and even some of the prayers um in the old testament daniel's prayer in daniel chapter nine and um ezra's prayer and you know chapter nine of ezra and our lord's prayer in john 17 which i've just parked in for the last couple of months um and so so the written prayers can really help somebody with their concentration with their contents and so i've written down prayers they weren't written to publish carrie they were written you know to help me and um and then we've had in our ministry had prayer initiatives in the past uh that have been very well received and so i took the some of my personal prayers and i used those in the prayer initiative and then i added some more as i felt god burdened me it's interesting one of the last prayers um i wrote actually i did write for the book but i told the editor i can't write a prayer for a book i have to pray a prayer and then record it you know but one of the last ones i did was for person the persecuted church and the lord just put that so heavy on my heart i pray continually for the believers in north korea for some reason that's because my mother was born and raised in china my aunt was a missionary to career for 40 years and i just can't bear to think of the suffering of those people in the gulags and um so anyway i put that that was a prayer that i prayed that then i've recorded to tuck into this book so so my my prayer for this book is that in seeking to overcome the struggle that i've had in concentration and content by writing out my prayers maybe my written prayers would help somebody else overcome their struggle in those same areas and i'm not saying that my prayers are anything like david's or ezra's or nehemiah's or you know but um but it's the idea that sometimes the written prayer and one of the volumes that i love i don't know if you're familiar with valley of vision do you know that i know of it but i've never read it no oh well you need to get it it's one it's a collection of puritan prayers and um and they're just they're old-timey but very moving and they've blessed me so much and i thought well you know maybe god would use prayers that i've prayed that come right out of my heart sometimes with tears on my face you know maybe these prayers would help somebody else just they can pray the prayers but but the thought is that it would launch them into their own yeah it's a springboard right that's how i always see written prayers as a springboard into your own that's how you use the lord's prayer as a springboard into into thought so writing down your prayers helps what else helps you in your prayer life because i think it's a struggle a lot of people have um one of the things i do is um i have a little put out a little volume called daily light are you familiar with that no not yet no well it was put out in the 1700s by jonathan baxter and my grandmother gave my mother a copy when she was 10. in china my mother gave me a copy when i was 10. i gave my children copies when they were 10 and then they weren't available anymore i bought up every copy they had in england it was just um in england and um and so when i signed with word um jack countryman was one of the you know the gift book publisher and i asked him would he take this and and redo it and he said he would and so we put it in the new king james version and what it is is just scripture morning and evening so there's a theme verse at the top and then a compilation of verses it was put together by jonathan baxter his family at suppertime this is before concordances before computers and they would come up with a theme and then they would chime in the verses it took them two weeks to confirm you know each morning or evening's readings but um but i can tell you that so many times god speaks to me through my daily life and so i begin my prayer time reading my daily life um and then if if the lord seems to say something to me through it then then i just stop and i talk to him about what i just read and um the one for this evening had a reminder in there that he's coming you know and i just that's a whole nother subject for a whole nother podcast but i believe his return is so soon and um and so i was just talking to him about the treaty signing yesterday and where we are and uh asking him to give me discernment to understand the times in which we're living and um so so that has helped um there are a couple of other devotionals that i i'll read and and then i i do what i've just told you i take a portion of scripture and would you believe i've done this for so long i've done the entire bible from genesis to revelation just one paragraph at a time and so now i'm going back through and i'm in daniel and i just happened to pick daniel for whatever reason but um i just take a paragraph every morning and ask what does that say and i write it down i have a little leather notebook set i just have a whole shelf of leather notebooks um that i filled in and just ask what does it say i list the facts and those few verses and what do the facts mean i try to draw a lesson from each one of the facts and what do the lessons mean in my life i put it in the form of a question to ask myself and i just write that down it helps with concentration but but also that i can talk to the lord but more often he's talking to me because we think of prayer as telling god what we need what's on our shopping list what we you know want but prayer for me is drawing near to the heart of god i want to know what's on his heart i want to know what's on his mind i want him to give me understanding and wisdom and discernment that's that and i want that personal intimate relationship with him so prayer is not just about getting answers prayer is about developing that intimate relationship with him and and i think meaningful prayer has to has to involve his word so in some way whatever is meaningful for you to pull his word into that where he speaks to you through his word you speak them through prayer and um and it becomes a conversation so uh and then in the summer time and now it's getting a little cool outside but but i'll move the place where i have my time with the lord i do it and then i have to wake myself up so i do my stretches and bands and all that and then i fix myself a strong cup of coffee and um and in the summertime i go outside and i just sit outside and but i have all my devotional things my bible my notebook pen glasses in a bag that i carry so i don't have to go looking for them every morning um when the weather turns cooler i go to a chair beside my fireplace i turn on the fireplace and um but i meet the lord in that way still with my bag of things but um so so those things have helped and and i think um i don't really incorporate music but i know i could and sometimes if somebody sends me a meaningful worship song then i'll listen to that in my prayer time but um but i don't do that consistently yeah that that's interesting you know as i've tried to rebuild my prayer life there's a lot of similarities journaling uh writing down prayers i just started a new prayer thing i saw my wife doing it i'm like oh i should do something like that and it's become much more interactive much more based on god's word rather than 30 minutes of me talking right that sounds familiar i tell you the truth i couldn't keep up a 30 minute monologue oh so maybe that's why we struggle with prayer trying to force something that just you know shouldn't necessarily be yeah um talk about because because you mentioned this the role of confession and what does that play in your view in prayer um a psalmist said that if i regard iniquity in my heart god won't hear me so um you know confession of sin is probably the one element that's missing from most of our prayers and um and to be to be honest i can be so superficial that i don't think i have any sin yes yes i'm familiar with that several years ago i don't talk about this in the book of course but um but several years ago i was preparing to teach on revival and the lord went silent on me and i was begging and help me with these messages and then he just whispered and i don't want to talk about the messages i want to talk about you and i said i don't want to talk about me i want these messages done then i'll talk about me and he just went silent again and and i had to get on my knees um and say all right let's talk about me and for seven days carrie he just break me over the coals it was like an isaiah six experience and every time i opened my bible he was convicting me of another sin sin i had no idea was in my life and i was getting ready to lead a seminar on revival i'd been in ministry for three years and um and there was just so much sin in my life and finally after seven days he felt like he said all right he's through and i just asked him lord are you sure you know i just um and i'll tell you this i have i don't think i've shared but um i asked for a recall you know i was so laid out so um stripped and emptied i just didn't know that i could teach anymore or like isaiah you're like i'm finished like please let me off the hook yeah yeah you know and um how can somebody when isaiah said a man of sinful unclean lips and i live amongst the people of uncle he was saying he's no better than his audience how could he be a prophet how could he minister them and and that was my feeling and then the lord recalled me from corinthians where he said and you're called into fellowship with my son and i thought bingo you know i'm not called into more ministry i'm not called into doing stuff i'm called into being um in fellowship with jesus and of course from that flows ministry so and from that flows the speaking and the teaching and the writing but but the call is the fellowship with jesus um so and i did put the thing that triggered that experience which was a brutal experience but one i wouldn't take anything for because when he when he cleansed me and i had three days left to prepare the messages the messages came the power was there the i felt like i had a bath on the inside you know um but it was triggered by an old-timey revivalist um uh dr finney and he's long since dead but i had a little book on revival that i was reading in preparation for teaching and he had a list of sins in there that he said to read through three times you know and so i thought well to humor him i'm gonna do that and first time i felt so smug because i didn't see any of those sins in my life second time i felt very spiritual because if i stretched it i could see one or two of those sins in my life third time i read it carrie every single sin on that list was in my life in one form of another and i was laid out so i put a list of sins in the back of the light of his presence in the back of that book and the editor took it out and i said you know something i think it needs to be back in and um because i think people like me they they don't even know they have sin in their lives you know can you give us an example of one or two of those sins that would be on the list finney's list or at the yeah one that comes to mind is ingratitude you know just not thanking god it's interesting in romans 1 that that's where that spiral down begins where we don't acknowledge god as god and we don't thank him you know and just what prayer is the answer for you that you haven't gone back to thank him for and um more like slander you know speaking the truth about somebody but with the intent of making people think less of that person yeah um everybody would know pride you know just who do you think is beneath you and um no those are good uh i've heard keller asked what are your besetting sins what are the ones that and they tend not to be you know well they are in some cases addictions or whatever but they're not you know we're really good at confessing other people's sins we're not very good at confessing our own and i think it's often those invisible sins that are very visible and impacting your relationship with others pride envy jealousy um anger ingratitude all those things workaholism you know i've i've got lots of them that's right and and the ones that you mentioned are all listed in the back of the book and i i think if i remember right i put a little definition next to each one so good so good and if it helps you know there's also another appendix in the back of the book on um um blessings we were robbed one year and uh my house was broken into and they took things and that night i was just going into shock because of um i thought they were going to come back the the police said they would come back um and so i was terrified i thought what do i have that people can't take away and i thought my they can come get my kids my husband can uh die of some illness which he actually said my house could burn to the ground you know you can lose your reputation through gossip and then it was just came to me um the things that could never be taken away from me and so i put the blessings um into the alphabet and i just been in ephesians chapters one and two so that you're accepted by god you're beloved by god you're chosen by god you're delivered by god you're enlightened and just went through the alphabet like that um and so i put that list of what i call the believer's birthright you know it's um those are your blessings by right of birth into god's family and i put those in the back also to just help people maybe with their praise and just to count their blessings when um some you know we can focus on circumstances that cause us to become down depressed despondent complaining but if you focus on your blessings you know the joy comes and the gratitude and um just that awareness of god's presence i love how you've gone back uh not only millennia but a few centuries too to finny and to the puritans and some others so we'll link to all that in the show notes and this has been a rich rich time together anything else you want to share with us i don't think so i just appreciate you're you're very easy to talk with and um and i just pray that what we've talked about is meaningful and um and i would just encourage people in this crazy world um just to put your feet the feet of your faith firmly planted on god's word god's word does not change and um and god loves you and god loves me and he longs to have a personal relationship with us and if i can just can i just share yes for a moment because uh it just occurs to me that there could be even people in ministry i taught a bible class for 12 years i had 500 women in it and anyway and we turned over several times thousands of women came through my class and what i found down in the southeastern part of the united states where i live is there a lot of women who are born and raised in the church who've never established a personal relationship with god through faith in jesus and i even had one woman who was a deacon in her church in a baptist church who had never been born again and i had the privilege of leading her to faith and so so if there's somebody listening carrie who maybe maybe you're in ministry maybe you're teaching sunday school maybe you're leading a bible study maybe you're in a prayer group maybe you know i don't know who you are but um but you've never humbled yourself and come to the cross and confess that you're a sinner and for me that's easy because i've listed some of my sins in the back of that book but also jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the lord your god with all your heart mind soul and strength so maybe the greatest sin is just not loving the lord your god with all your heart mind soul and strength for one moment and one day of your whole life and and there have been moments and days when i haven't loved the lord like that so i'm it's easy for me to confess that i'm a sinner and uh and you just confess you're a sinner you tell god you're sorry for all the wrong things you've done and believe that jesus died on the cross for you if no one else needed a savior you did and you claim jesus and his death is god's atoning sacrifice for your sin and let me tell you something there's no other sacrifice so there's no other way you can have your sins forgiven you must come to the cross humbly confessing your sin claiming jesus as your savior asking god to forgive you and cleanse you with his blood and then open up your heart and believe jesus has been raised from the dead but will come into you in the person of his holy spirit he will never leave you never forsake you but you must invite him in john 1 12 says as many as receive him that's receiving from the outside the inside then you become a child of god and it's not anything anybody can do for you on your behalf it's a decision you have to make i made that decision kerry when i was before nine but i'd watched a picture of jesus on television and and i i was convic convicted convinced that jesus died for me and i got down on my knees in my bedroom and told god i was sorry for my sin i asked him to forgive me to come into my heart and i didn't understand about the holy spirit then but now i know of course jesus came into my heart and the person of the holy spirit and i knew i felt lighter you know i went down to tell my mother what i'd done and i i felt um i didn't even know i had a burden at that age but but i felt lighter on the inside and i fell in love with god's word and fell in love with jesus and um and he's never left me never forsaken me and he has a plan and purpose for my life that i pray i'll complete before i see him but but just for those who are listening if there's somebody who has never done that because for me um god has no grandchildren just because i'm billy graham's daughter doesn't mean i'm a child of god i had to make that decision for myself on my own and um and so i just encourage you to examine your heart and life if you can't remember a time when you have humbly come to god confessed your sin asked him to forgive you come into your heart then how do you know you have no don't assume that you're a christian just because you listen to this podcast or you go to church or maybe you're a pastor you make sure that um from god's perspective you're his child because you put your faith in his son and one day we'll see you again and we'll be together in heaven and that will be a wonderful time you want to lead us in prayer for that i would love to thank you okay so father we bow before you now with humble hearts so grateful for your blessings and the predominant blessing that you've given us is jesus and i thank you for uh the fact before the foundations of the world relayed that you knew i would come into existence i would sin i would need a savior and so you have sent jesus just for me and lord i pray for those who are listening who are watching i ask please if there is someone here listening that um is not sure that they've ever been saved they're not really sure you live inside of them and the person of the holy spirit maybe they've prayed but they've lacked assurance and lord i i just ask right now that you'd quicken their hearts holy spirit would you just convict them and draw them right now to the cross and pray a simple prayer like this just dear god i confess i'm a sinner i'm so sorry i'm sorry for all the wrong things i've done but i believe jesus died on the cross for me so god would you cleanse me with his blood forgive me of all of my sin and i believe jesus rose up from the dead to give me eternal life to open heaven for me but i know that eternal life is a relationship with you right now and that's what i want as well as the hope of heaven so would you come into my heart would you live within me in the person of the holy spirit i receive you into myself and i want to be your child so i pray this in jesus name and if you've prayed a prayer something like that um words aren't as important as your faith and let me tell you something if if you like assurance if you say and i've prayed that prayer many times but i still like assurance then i question whether you've ever prayed it once by faith so faith takes god at his word don't don't base it on what anna said god's word says if you confess your sin he will forgive you god's word says if you ask him to give you eternal life he will give it to you god's word says if you open up your heart and you invite jesus to come inside he will come inside he will never leave you never forsake you so your faith is based on god's word and then you just get on with your christian life read your bible pray develop that relationship with god and i look forward to being with him forever in heaven and thank you that is uh that is a gift and i know that they're going to be people who are greatly encouraged whose lives are changed forever as a result of this conversation and um obviously we'll link to everything in the show notes with your books but if people want to find out more of what you're up to what website could they go to or where can they find you my name is my name anne graham lots and i put an e a nne graham g-r-a-h-a-m-lots l-o-t-z.org awesome and then we've got all sorts of free bible studies on there carrie we want to get people into god's word so they're they're books of course we have a store but they're all sorts of free resources that pastors and people around the world access so um so it's a it's a niche ministry but i'm very grateful for it and god has used it uh to draw people to himself through the word so i would love to have your anybody who's listening who wants more and wants to go deeper into god's word come come check us out at anngramlots.org and thank you so much for being with us today thank you kerry god bless you [Music] well i hope today's episode was helpful to you you can always get more by subscribing to my channel i also have a lot more content over at careynuhof.com for leaders and business and leaders in churches and you can get transcripts of this episode there and so much more plus some other stuff i do for leaders so head on over there to discover more at careynuhof.com and in the meantime i really hope our time together today has helped you lead like never before

Channel: Carey Nieuwhof

Views: 15,004

Rating: 4.9250002 out of 5

Keywords: Carey Nieuwhof, Carey Nieuwhof podcast, Carey Nieuwhof leadership podcast, Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham, Billy Graham's daughter, How to pray, Ruth Graham

Id: MhEPdxixtjE

Length: 71min 38sec (4298 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020