Surprised by the Spirit

[Sam]

This is from pages 54-60 of the May 2007 issue of Charisma Magazine. I thought it was interesting because it tells us about a member of the Billy Graham family that we never hear anything about. I think it’s also interesting to hear how the Holy Spirit has worked in his life and the changes that have been made. I've sent it out before but just think it's worth reading again.
Jim Ellis

Surprised by the Spirit
By Sandra Chambers

Ned Graham, the youngest son of evangelist Billy Graham, discovered a new direction for his ministry when he was filled with the Holy Spirit’s power.

Hues of yellow, orange and red cast a soft blanket of color across the mountaintops behind the log home where Nelson Edman "Ned" Graham grew up as the youngest child of the Rev. Billy and Ruth Graham. Having returned to the family home in Montreat, North Carolina, where he makes periodic visits to oversee the care of his aging parents, Ned has many happy childhood memories of growing up on this mountain.

"I'm definitely at home in the mountains," he admits. "There's a perspective of depth and contrast the mountains offer, as well as a sense of permanence and beauty."

And like the mountains he loves, Ned has been marked by a few deep crevices and dark hollows. Emotional and spiritual forces shaped them, but through God's mercy and deliverance he has escaped their lingering shadows of despair, depression, addiction and demonic oppression. He has emerged with a new understanding of the Holy Spirit and God's love. Being the youngest of his four siblings by six years, Ned says that in some ways he was like an only child.

“Because my brothers and sisters were all older and my sisters got married at an early age, I got to spend more one-on-one time with my parents,” he says. “Growing up, my dad and I always had a very special bond. Dad always hugged me and told me he loved me no matter what. Even when I felt like a failure, he told me how proud he was of me.”

Ned says one of his fondest memories of early childhood was going back to his father’s bedroom, knocking on the door and peeking in to find him on the telephone with some important person, such as the president.

“He’d say, ‘Just a moment, Lyndon,’ put the phone on his chest, and then motion for me to come in,” Ned recalls. ”To me, that said I was more important than the president of the United States! I’d crawl up on his bed, content just to lie there with my head on his chest.”

“Ned will never admit it, but he’s my mother’s favorite child,” insists Anne Graham Lotz, one of Ned’s three sisters. “Mother just doted on him. He was the center of her life --after Daddy, of course-- and I think it’s God’s blessing that Ned would be the one to come back and look after them.”

Ned and Anne both say that when they were growing up there was no sibling rivalry among the five Graham children --Virginia “Gigi” Graham Tchividjian, 61, author and speaker; Anne Graham Lotz, 58, founder of AnGeL Ministries; Ruth “Bunny” Graham McIntyre, 56, author and speaker; William Franklin Graham III, 54, president and CEO of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse; and Ned, 49, president of East Gates International.

Like his brother, Franklin, Ned suffered through tumultuous teen years, displaying his rebellion through a love for fast cars, drinking and girls. But unlike Franklin, who abandoned his rebellion early, Ned struggled for 30 years with his before he came face to face with the issues that had contributed to it.

Darkness Invades
“When I was a little boy, I had a very pure, unadulterated relationship with God,” Ned says. “But when I was 11 and 12 years old, I experienced two childhood sexual-abuse traumas that opened the door for demonic affliction.”

He suspected in his mid-20’s that he was demonically afflicted, but he chose not to deal with it because he didn’t know enough about it. He was also too ashamed to bring it to the attention of anyone in the evangelical community.

Ned says he doesn’t believe he was demonically possessed from the trauma because Jesus still lived in his soul. “There was a dissonance in my life between what I refer to as ‘Big Ned,’ who was demonically oppressed, and ‘Little Ned,’ who was still very spiritually sharp,” he explains.

“When someone is demonically afflicted it doesn’t mean they are spiritually incapacitated,” he stresses. “I believe there are many good Christians today serving in churches, and even in leadership positions, who are demonically afflicted. All you have to do is look at the pornographic and sexual addiction rate among pastors and the substance-abuse statistics of Christian leaders to see it.”

Though Ned’s family didn’t know the source of his pain, it was obvious to them that he was struggling spiritually.

“I remember watching him as a little boy,” Anne says. “He was very precious and angelic, but as I watched him grow into his teens he became very selfish and manipulative. ...There was not that love or surrender to the Lord.”

After high school, Ned entered Judson College in Elgin, Illinois. He stayed there one year, and then took a year off to teach rock climbing and outdoor survival skills in western North Carolina. During a climb, he fell and suffered serious injuries. He was taken to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he met his first wife.

“I was 20, and she was 26,” Ned says. “At the time I was very rebellious and into marijuana and alcohol, and I naively thought that I knew what love was and that it would take care of everything.”

After recovering from his injuries, Ned attended the University of Minnesota as a pre-med student but later transferred to Pacific Lutheran University in Seattle, where he graduated in 1986 with a degree in communications.

After graduation, he entered Fuller Theological Seminary and earned a master’s degree in theology. While studying at Fuller, he took a position as an intern of adult ministries at Bible Baptist Church. This led to a pastorate, where he served for six years before God called him in 1992 to establish East Gates International.

When his first wife filed for divorce in 1998 after 20 years of marriage, Ned says he pushed past the pain. “I’m a rock climber and a mountaineer, and I’d always pushed past pain in my live through sheer strength and willpower.”

Among those who were a support to Ned during his divorce was Christina “Tina” Kuo, who had joined the East Gates International staff a year before as director of training. “Christina had a great heart for China, and she became a great fit with our indigenous Chinese team. We became very good friends as we traveled with our team throughout China.”

Back home, Ned says he would often take his two sons, Alex and Sam (then 13 and 10), and his dog, Pugsley, into the East Gates office with him. “Sam and Pugsley would somehow always end up in Christina’s office,” he says, “One day Sam asked me, ‘Dad, if you ever decide to remarry, would you ever consider Tina?’

“That was the last thing on my mind at the time, but I ended up falling in love with her and even traveled back home to North Carolina to seek my mother’s counsel. Mom said: ‘Ned, if you love her ... follow your heart. Just make sure your heart is following God’s.’”

In February 2001, Sam’s request was fulfilled and Ned and Tina were married by his father in his parent’s Montreat home. One year later, at his father’s request, Ned and Tina returned to the North Carolina mountains to care for Ned’s mother, who was hospitalized and said to be dying.

Having worked as a certified nursing assistant throughout his educational pursuits, Ned was well-qualified to assist in the physical care of his mother. What he wasn’t prepared for was the spiritual warfare taking place on the mountain. “When you think about it, Satan would love nothing better than to attack Billy Graham and his family, as evidenced by his attack on me very early in life.”

Although Ned dedicated himself to caring for his mom during the two years he was at Montreat, he says he was still struggling with his own physical and spiritual issues. “I had torn my thigh muscle playing tennis, and I remember Anne telling me I was like Jacob wrestling with God.”

When Ned and Tina returned to Seattle in 2004, Ned’s depression deepened. “I came to a point where I gave up on everything,” he says. “I stopped caring. I no longer feared death or life. I no longer feared failure or success. It was at that point that God could interact with me.”

Although Ned knew nothing about deliverance, he agreed to see a well-known deliverance minister after a friend suggested it. The attempt to free him from his demonic affliction failed, Ned says, and caused even more damage to his psyche.

Tina says she didn’t feel comfortable with the idea in the first place, “And things got much worse, afterwards,” she says. “When you stimulate the dark side in a person and don’t resolve it, it worsens.”

Anne recalls, “I was in Seattle around this time doing a Just Give Me Jesus conference. When I saw Ned, he was barely hanging in there. I thought he was having a complete inner breakdown, emotionally, spiritually and mentally. It was very scary.”

continued in part 2