GroshLink

Looking to brush up on what the world was like in 1981? Take a moment to read through and reflect upon Mission Impossible: Your Commitment to Christ, Billy Graham's presentation at Urbana 81. He finishes with the powerful personal story given below, which drives home the challenge There are a thousand things you can do with your life, a thousand things for which you can spend it. But how many of them will enable you to say at the end of your life, "No reserve, no retreat, no regrets"? Father, I rejoice in the gift of life to be about your work today on CMU campus. Speak into the skills, relationships, and opportunities that you have set before me. Empower me with your Spirit in order that I might live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ that as I reflect on my days I might too declare "No reserve, no retreat, no regrets."

Sandy Ford was only twenty-one. He was a great athlete, a great student and had just been elected president of the largest Inter-Varsity chapter at any university in the United States - the chapter at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was one of the most remarkable young men it was ever my privilege to know.

One day Sandy Ford was running the mile and winning. Then he stumbled and fell. He was having a heart attack. He looked back and saw that he was still ahead, and he got back up and went a few more yards and fell again. He saw that he was still ahead, so he crawled across the finish line. Newspapers carried his picture on the front page.

Last month, on November 27th, after an eight-hour operation to fix it, Sandy's heart stopped beating. It never started again. Many people said, "What a tragedy." The newspapers in our state wrote editorials about his life. Thousands who knew him or didn't know him were shocked - but challenged. Sandy's life had not been cut short at twenty-one. It had been completed.
I was in New York the Sunday before Sandy's operation. Something said to me, "Go by Duke University and see Sandy." He was at the Duke hospital. I went seven hours out of my way to see him. He was my nephew, the son of Leighton Ford, who married my sister. I went into the hospital room, and we had two wonderful hours together. And Sandy said an interesting thing: "You know, Uncle Billy, I believe that my illness here has something to do with those meetings at the University this next fall. " Little did he know that by death he would be bringing the first message. God had a plan. Sandy had put himself totally and completely in the hands of Christ: "no reserve, no retreat, no regrets."

You do not know how much time you have. But that is not the important thing. The important thing is that from this moment on, you decide to be God's man or God's woman - without reserve, without retreat, without regrets - wherever he sends you. Jesus hung on the cross publicly with hundreds of people watching him and mocking him. He hung there for you, and if you were the only person in the whole world that needed him he would have died for you. That's how much he loves you. He is ready to come into your heart and forgive you, cleanse you, make you a new person and start you on a new road. Will you dedicate yourself to him without reserve, retreat or regrets?

Reminder: time to register for Urbana 2006, so please pass along the word to college students that you know (and take the time to check out more pieces from the Urbana archives)? Also, please join me in prayer for the direction and detail preparations for this year's focused tracks.