‘I Didn’t Want God Running My Life’: Franklin Graham Opens Up about His Rocky Relationship with Christ as a Teen
Franklin Graham may be known as a notable public evangelist who works tirelessly to share the gospel with anyone who will hear, but that was not always the case.
In an interview with Charlotte Pence Bond on her podcast, Doubting It, Graham opened up about how, even though he grew up in a Christian household and regularly attended church, he was not really living his life as a Christian for a while.
During the interview, Graham talked about how, in his youth, even though he knew God was supposed to be at the center of his life, he instead tried to focus on serving himself.
“I just didn’t want God running my life. I wanted to run my own life. I wanted to have fun. I went to church because I was expected to,” he told Bond in the interview. “As I got older in my teenage years, I was more interested in pleasing myself. I just turned my back on God and tried to serve myself.”
However, Graham tended to find that, the more he tried to serve himself, the less happy he was. Eventually, it got so unbearable that, in a moment of powerful reflection, he decided to truly follow Jesus.
“One night, I just got on my knees and I said, ‘God, I’ve sinned against you and I’m sorry,” Graham reflected, noting how he asked God to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and use them for His glory. He then went on to state “I still make plenty of mistakes, but when I prayed that prayer it was sincere.”
He ended the segment with a message to young people: “I would encourage young people … start every day in the word of God,” he said, going on to herald the essential nature of prayer. “Prayer allows us to go right into the presence of the king of kings, the Lord of Lords … we can go straight to God.”
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John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Daily Fodder, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
