Slaying the Giant of Procrastination

Billy Graham was at a hotel in Seattle, fast asleep, when he suddenly woke with a powerful burden to pray for Marilyn Monroe, the actress and sex symbol. Graham understood something of the urgency of the Spirit’s prompting. He began to pray, and the next day the burden was just as strong. He had his assistants try to contact Monroe over the phone, but her agent made it difficult. She was too busy, the man said, but she would meet with the Reverend Graham—sometime. “Not now,” said the agent. “Maybe two weeks from now.”

Two weeks were too little too late. Two weeks later the headlines of America shouted out the news that Marilyn Monroe had committed suicide. She would never have that opportunity to find peace for her soul.

1. L. Moody, the famous evangelist, was preaching on October 8, 1871, in Chicago. It was one of the largest crowds he ever addressed, and his topic was “What will you do with Jesus?” He focused on the decision that faced Pilate, and Moody concluded by saying, “I wish you would seriously consider this subject, for next Sunday we’ll speak about the cross. Then I’ll ask you, ‘What will you do with Jesus?’ ” The service was closed with a hymn, but the hymn was never completed—the roar of fire engines filled the auditorium. The streets erupted in panic. The famous Chicago fire of 1871 broke out that very night and almost singed Chicago off the map.

That sermon on the cross never came. Moody often said afterward, “I have never since dared to give an audience a week to think of their salvation.” The question haunted him: How many were ready? How many were hearing the voice of God, and would have laid their souls before Christ that evening? How many windows of opportunity closed at the first shrill whine of the fire engine?

As you finish reading this chapter, there is one question that confronts you: What are you waiting for?

David Jeremiah, Slaying the Giants in Your Life (Nashville, TN: W Pub., 2001), 12–14.

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