“I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4).
A century ago, Dwight Lyman Moody was as well-known as Billy Graham. All over the world, English-speaking people had been affected by this forceful, energetic evangelist. It was in the fall of 1892 when Moody boarded a ship from Southampton headed towards New York. Three days into the journey, disaster struck. In his memoirs, Moody told how he was lying on his bunk, reflecting on his good fortune and how he had never been involved in an “accident of a serious nature.” At the very moment he was thinking about it, Moody was startled by a loud noise and the vessel began to shudder as though it had been “driven on a rock.”
It was serious, very serious. The large shaft, which drove the propeller, had broken and smashed through the side of the ship. Water began pouring in and soon it became apparent that the ship would sink.
- L. Moody was no stranger to dangerous situations. In the American Civil War, he had been shot at, but the bullets missed him. He was in Chicago during the great cholera epidemic and went with doctors to visit the sick and dying, but the sickness spared him. Moody said, “I remember a case of smallpox where the sufferer’s condition was beyond description, yet I went to the bedside of that poor sufferer again and again.… In all this I had no fear of death. But on the sinking ship it was different. It was the darkest hour of my life.”
Moody had never before known the cold, gnawing reality of fear. By his own testimony, “I had thought myself superior to the fear of death,” but this time it was different. “I could not endure it,” he said. Moody went to his cabin and on his knees poured his heart out to God in prayer. What happened? Moody said, “God heard my cry, and enabled me to say, from the depths of my soul, `Thy will be done!'”
Moody had gotten through to God and his fear left him. He went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately. He said, “I … never slept any more soundly in all my life. I can no more doubt that God gave answer to my prayer for relief than I can doubt my own existence.”
At three in the morning, Moody’s son awakened him with the good news that a steamer had heard their distress signals, and seven days later, they were towed into safe harbor.
“The darkest hour of my life” was the way Moody described it. Keep in mind this was a man who had preached to hundreds of thousands. In his day he spoke to more people than any man alive. Moody said it was not because he feared dying, but he feared leaving behind his family and the friends whom he loved.
May I leave you with two thoughts? No one is immune from the dark hours of the soul when fear gnaws at your innermost being. Even spiritual giants are susceptible. “Elijah was a man just like us,” says James.
The second thought is that the dark hours of our lives must yield to prayer, for it is this that reminds the Father we are His children and He has promised to keep us. Moody said, “Out of the depths I cried unto my Lord, and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears,” echoing the words of David in Psalm 34.
Are you in the midst of the darkest hour of your life? As you say, “Thy will be done!” you will sense His presence and find His deliverance.
Scores of men and women can testify to the fact that at the darkest hour of their life, God broke through, giving them peace and courage to say, as did Moody, “Thy will be done!” You can, too!
Resource reading: Jonah 1.
