Graham - Hope for the Troubled Heart: Finding God in the Midst of Pain

HOPE FOR THE
TROUBLED HEART

OTHER BOOKS BY BILLY GRAHAM

Angels: Gods Secret Agents

Death and the Life After

The Holy Spirit

How to Be Born Again

The Journey

Peace with God

The Secret of Happiness

Unto the Hills

HOPE FOR THE
TROUBLED HEART

BILLY GRAHAM

HOPE FOR THE TROUBLED HEART

1991 by Billy Graham

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without written permission from the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. Those marked ASV are from The American Standard Version of the Bible, 1901. Those marked KJV are from the King James Version. Those marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Those marked PHILLIPS are from The New Testament in Modern English, by J. B. Phillips, published by The Macmillan Company, 1958, 1960, 1972. Those marked TLB are from The Living Bible, copyright 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Ill. Used by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Graham, Billy
Hope for the troubled heart / Billy Graham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8499-0702-9 (HC)
ISBN 978-0-8499-1137-8 (TP)
1. Theodicy. 2. Consolation. I. Title.
BT160.G66 1991
248.8'6dc20

9127705

Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 12 BTY 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

I n my travels over the decades, I have found that people are the same the world over. However, in recent years I find that there is an increasing problem that I would sum up in the word hopeless. It may be because we get news of troubles, problems, disasters, wars, etc., instantaneously in comparison to years ago when it might have taken weeks, months, or even years to hear of an event. But theres something else even more insidious. People in the most affluent societies are feeling this sense of despair and hopelessness.

Perhaps the greatest psychological, spiritual, and medical need that all people have is the need for hope. Dr. McNair Wilson, the famous cardiologist, remarked in his autobiography, Doctors Progress, Hope is the medicine I use more than any otherhope can cure nearly anything.

I remember years ago that Dr. Harold Wolff, professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College and associate professor of psychiatry, said, Hope, like faith and a purpose in life, is medicinal. This is not exactly a statement of belief, but a conclusion proved by meticulously controlled scientific experiment.

Hope is both biologically and psychologically vital to man. Men and women must have hope, and yet a great part of our world today is living without it. The apostle Paul wrote two thousand years ago to the Ephesians that the Roman civilization of his day was without hope.

This is like so much of our world today. We are trying to live normal lives without ultimate hope, and we are finding failures on every hand. I believe that Hope for the Troubled Heart, which I have written with the help of several other people, will not only be of help but will be life-transforming for many who may read it. I send it forth with a prayer that it will bring new hope to thousands of sufferers from this terrible disease of hopelessness.

This book has been written with the help especially of my longtime friend Carole Carlson; my beloved wife Ruth, who seems to have unlimited resources for every subject that I write on; my friend Millie Dienert, who was kind enough to go through the manuscript and make suggestions while on our way to Moscow recently; and to my wonderful, small staff at Montreat especially Stephanie Wills, who typed and retyped changes in the manuscript. For their patience, I want to thank Word Publishing, who waited many long months while I finished the book in the midst of other pressing demands.

May God bless this volume to the encouragement of thousands and give hope to the despairing.

Billy Graham
Europe, Summer of 1991

1
WORLD IN PAIN

V oices from troubled hearts: Our home is a war zone! Dont talk to me about international war. I want to know how we can find peace in our family!... Im a rape victim. How can I ever get over my memories, or my horrible fears?... Ive lost my job and may lose my home. Dont tell me about Wall Street blues!... How can I raise decent kids when theyre surrounded by bad influences?... Im more worried about whats polluting the minds of my children. Theyre the most endangered species!... We have a nice home and carsyoud think I would be happy. But I feel empty. Im not sure of my husband anymore and Im so lonely.

This is the generation that will pass through the fire. It is the generation... under the gun. This is the tormented generation. This is the generation destined to live in the midst of crisis, danger, fear, and death. We are like a people under sentence of death, waiting for the date to be set. We sense that something is about to happen. We know that things cannot go on as they are. History has reached an impasse. We are now on a collision course. Something is about to give.

I wrote this in 1965.

At that time few of us thought the world could get much worse and survive. I was wrong. In many ways the world has gotten worse, and we have survived. But we are a world in paina world that suffers collectively from the violence of nature and man, and a world that suffers individually from personal heartache.

Because we have instant communication today, our planet has shrunk to the size of a television screen. Although husbands and wives, children and parents have trouble communicating, we can watch a war as it is happening before our eyes. A comfortable room can be turned into a foreign battlefield or a street riot with the push of a button.

Our children have grown and married and we now have (at last count) nineteen grandchildren. I cannot promise them that this present world will get better. With all my heart, I would like to protect them from pain. But what I see is a universal malaise which affects civilization, giving me little hope that man alone can change the course of human events to make a better world.

There have been dazzling achievements in the years since my children were small. Man has landed on the moon, and Patriot missiles have intercepted and destroyed incoming ballistic warheads. From world records in sports to VCRs and microwave ovens, this has been a period of great scientific change.

But how far have we come? Are we better off in the nineties than we were in the sixties? In 1965 I said that most of the current experts, analysts, philosophers, and statesmen agreed that man is sick. Some of them believed we had already passed the point of no return. Has the patient improved or is the diagnosis terminal?

We are told by historians that peace has never been achieved at any time in history. Since the early eighteenth century, the world has known only eleven years in which there have been no wars. Even during those eleven years, there may have been small undetected wars in out-of-the-way places in the world.