October 26 | Moments Almanac | Torrey

If you could be remembered for just one thing, what would it be? It wouldn't be your accomplishments, your titles, not the things you owned or the money you made, but the one thing that mattered so much to you that it shaped everything. Welcome to Moments Almanac for October 26th, where we remember two remarkable people. One was a preacher who spent much of his life on his knees, and the other was a singer whose voice could fill a concert hall and stir the soul. They lived very different lives, but they had something extraordinary in common. They knew what mattered most. Our first story begins with a man named Reuben Archer Torrey. Most people know him simply as R. A. Tory. He was born in 1856 and became one of the most influential evangelical leaders of his generation. He worked closely with the legacy of Dwight L. Moody. He served as superintendent of Moody Bible Institute for 19 years. He traveled the world preaching, he wrote books, he trained Christian leaders, and he pastored the great Moody Church in Chicago. If you were writing his resume, you would have plenty of impressive things to include, but when Tory died on October 26, 1928, those who remembered him spoke of something else, prayer. Not the kind of prayer that fills the space between the offering and the announcements on Sunday morning, not the hurried prayer before a meal, but regular, deliberate, uninterrupted prayer. Tory believed that prayer wasn't something you squeezed into an already crowded life. It was something that you built your life around. He set aside specific hours, he guarded that time, he prayed systematically. And for all his preaching and teaching, he understood that the most important work he did was the work nobody ever saw. There's something quietly challenging about that. We live in a world that measures almost everything by visibility, how many people attended, how many books were sold, how many people listened, how many followers you got. But Tory believed that some of the most influential and important moments in a person's life happened behind closed doors, just a man and his God. When Tory died, his wife Clara wrote about the final day in her diary. Her words were tender and remarkably peaceful. God's finger touched him and he slept, and she imagined him waking in heaven in the presence of the Savior he had loved and served for fifty years. What a beautiful way to describe death. Not as the end of a life of devotion, but as the moment when faith becomes sight. Now on that very same date, october twenty sixth, seventeen years before Tori's death, a little girl was born in New Orleans. Her name was Mahalia Jackson, and the world had no idea what kind of voice had just arrived. Mahalia grew up surrounded by the sounds of church music, hymns, spirituals, the passionate singing of black congregations in the American South. She learned early that music could carry something words alone could not. At age sixteen she moved to Chicago, and there she joined the choir at the Greater Salem Baptist Church. Before long people began to notice her voice. It was powerful, rich, unmistakable. She could make a room tremble, and she could make a single listener feel as though she were singing directly to them. As her reputation grew, opportunities began to appear. People wanted her to sing other kinds of songs and other types of music, jazz, blues, popular songs. There was money to be made, a great deal of money. Even Louis Armstrong reportedly encouraged her to consider secular music, but Mahalia had made a decision. She would sing gospel, and she would keep singing gospel. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with singing secular music, but for Mahalia Jackson, this was a matter of personal calling. She believed God had given her a voice for a particular purpose, and she wasn't willing to trade that purpose for greater commercial success. The decision cost her. She created tension in her personal life. Her first marriage ended in divorce with disagreements over her career among the difficulties, but she remained committed to the music she believed she had been called to sing. She once explained it this way I sing God's music because it makes me feel free. She sang before presidents, she performed for enormous audiences, and in 1963 she stood near Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington. And this is one of my favorite snapshots of the story. As King delivered his famous address, Jackson called out for him to tell the crowd about the dream, and he did. Her voice helped shape one of the defining moments of the American Civil Rights Movement. But through all the acclaim, all the concerts, and all the attention, she remained a gospel singer. She knew what she was called to do, and she kept doing it. Now here's where these two stories come together. R. A. Tory and Mahalia Jackson, an odd couple, probably wouldn't have agreed about everything. They came from different backgrounds, different traditions, different worlds. One was known for preaching and prayer and the other for music that could move a congregation to tears, but both reminded me of a verse in Psalm 27. It was one of Mahalia Jackson's favorite Psalms. David wrote, One thing I have desired of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all my days, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. One thing, not a hundred competing ambitions, not a thousand things demanding equal importance, one thing to know God, to live in his presence and to behold his beauty, and to let everything else find its proper place around that desire. I think that's what connects these two remarkable lives. Tori found his way into God's presence through the discipline of prayer, and Mahalia Jackson, well, she expressed devotion through the gift of song, and both discovered that life doesn't have to be divided among a thousand competing purposes. It can be gathered around one great love. Now I'm fairly certain that most of us will never sing like Mahalia Jackson. I mean, I've heard myself sing and I can confirm that the world is better off without me singing into a microphone. But the invitation of Psalm 27 isn't reserved for great preachers or extraordinary singers. It's for all of us. Because the question isn't whether we have an impressive gift. The question is what are we going to do with the life that we've been given? What matters most? What deserves our best attention? What is worth protecting from all the distractions that crowd our days? And what would happen if we stop trying to make everything equally important? Maybe we should pray a little more, maybe we should listen a little longer, and maybe we should discover that faithfulness doesn't always require doing more. Sometimes it requires remembering why we're doing anything at all. R. A. Tori, Mahalia Jackson, yes, an odd couple. Two lives, two callings, one extraordinary devotion. Because in the end, a life of faith isn't measured by how many things we can manage to accomplish. It's measured by the one with whom we give our hearts. One thing, one great love, one life offered back to God. And that's Moments Almanac for October 26th. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments and share the grace.