How's your holiday spirit?

It's been nice attending services here in California the past few weeks. Don't get me wrong--I love speaking and sharing. But it's a nice change of pace to simply worship from the pews. The last church I spoke at in Pennsylvania was on December 13. If you were there, you'll remember that I shared my key verse for the holiday season--James 1:19. "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." I'm glad I chose that verse, because in all of the stress and intensity of the primarily joyful holiday season, it's really bailed me out a few times. I'm grateful that the Lord used these words to remind me and encourage me when my sinful nature felt like being slow to listen and quick to speak and become angry.

I definitely have a lot of growing to do this next year, and I just need to remember that I'm not in this thing alone. The spirit of Christ is in me every day of the year.

Moses, part 3

When people utter things like “you never know when you’ll go” and “life is fleeting,” nobody really believes them. Human beings are frequently amnesiac about their own mortality. Moses’ death, however, brought me face-to-face with that reality. And in view of eternity—an eternity with God in heaven for those who choose Jesus and an eternity separated from God in hell for those who rely on their own strength—I consider my relationship with Moses an epic failure.

Sure, I don’t actually know his spiritual state at death. I don’t know him well enough to know if his choices were in the direction of life and God or of death and destruction. Only God knows the true state of anyone’s heart. But from the indications I’d seen, this is man who did not know the Lord.

I had open doors to share more about Jesus with this man, and yet I failed to make eternal truth a priority. Instead, I took care of hundreds of errands and enjoyed time with my wife and kids in the city each time I traveled close to Moses. Multiple trips passed, months passed, and yet I never did my part.

As I drove home from Nairobi that evening, tears frequently hit me as I thought of his tragic ending and my selfish failure as God’s tool.

I picked up the phone and called a family member that night. I told this person about Moses’ death, and I told this person about salvation and heaven and a relationship with Christ. I told this person what I hadn’t said face-to-face in all of my dozen years as a Christian. I don’t know the effect of that conversation and may never know it here on earth. But I know that I shared the most important truth you can share with a loved one. And I know that I made the simple truth of the Bible, truth that can get muddled or glossed over in church, known to this person: God wants to forgive you if you’ll admit that you were wrong.

That’s all we’re asked to do. Love God. Love others. Time is short, and no chance to love should be put off until tomorrow.

Moses, part 2

My wife is an amateur hair stylist. She cuts our boys hair and has taken a few whacks at mine in the past. Of course, I’m a much more picky and fussy customer than our children, and so it wasn’t unusual for my haircuts to take 90 minutes or so for her to appease my vanity. After numerous cuts, we finally decided that for the good of our marriage I should probably just go to a professional in Nairobi.

I found a young man named Moses at an outdoor mall and began to employ him every other month or so. Over time our relationship grew. We had a lot in common, and eventually I shared my testimony of how God changed my life. He was open to spiritual things, so one day I found him in between haircuts and gave him Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life. He was excited to receive a hardback book and told me he would read it.

At my next haircut, Moses enthusiastically told me that he had read it already. I was amazed. I told him we should get together and talk about the book. I hoped to see if Moses had given his life to the Lord or if perhaps I could help him take steps in that direction. We didn’t set up an appointment.

The next time I got my haircut (another six weeks or so had passed) we talked about getting together again. And again, I felt a burden to sit down with Moses and talk about Jesus, partially because of the alcohol I smelled on his breath as he cut. A man who reeks of liquor at mid-day probably isn’t experiencing the free and joyful life Christ intended for him. However, our trips into Nairobi are usually so busy (as we do a months worth of errands at a time) that the meeting was never set.

Another few weeks passed and I went to the shop where Moses worked. I called Moses early in the morning to ask him when he could see me for my hair. A relative answered his phone and proceeded to tell me a shocking story. Moses had died a week earlier in a house fire.

I went into the shop to talk with his co-workers, to grieve with them, and to learn more of his story. He had fallen asleep with candles burning in his one room apartment and the curtains caught fire. Fortunately, his wife and son were sleeping at her parents’ house that evening.

I'll finish the story on Friday.

Moses, part 1

When we were at the National Youth Workers Convention in early November, I attended a seminar on “Reinventing Gathering” by Mark Novelli, a mega-church youth pastor who learned some hard lessons about running a program. One of the observations he made is that youth today have a blurred line between private and public information. MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter have brought about a culture where kids will share their deepest emotions among hundreds of acquaintances on the Internet but can’t share anything of import amongst each other face-to-face.

The “public versus private” debate is one I’ve tangled up in as a blogger and author. If communication isn’t authentic and honest, my writing will lose its potency. On the other hand, how much should I share about the thoughts and words of my wife and kids? Where do I draw the line between exposing too much of my own thoughts and hiding the real “me” from readers?

Earlier this year, I experienced something that I have been unable to share until now. It was an event so personal and spiritual that I felt baffled about how to write about it. I feel sufficiently distanced from the event now to try and bring this private story public.

More on Wednesday.

My take on Tiger

“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” Psalm 85:10

I cracked open my Bible this morning and read this verse. God knew what I needed.

I’ve been really upset the past few days about the Tiger Woods situation. I know it seems pretty random to be disturbed significantly about celebrity gossip, especially when that celebrity isn’t one I’ve necessarily adored or followed through the years. I hate golf and I’m not a subscriber to Us or People magazines. Yet, I’m profoundly saddened by what has been revealed over the past week.

In this age of reality TV, the best stories are the one’s that unfold before our eyes in the lives of our cultural icons. Tiger’s “transgressions” therefore are a box-office hit. While we crave stories to entertain us and teach us about life, the stories that are real impact us a thousand times more than a fictitious telling on the stage or screen.

Some of us may lament for Tiger as the tragic hero whose fatal flaw has caused him grief and personal destruction. Others may take a less serious approach and joke about his dalliances as if Tiger’s story were really just a comedy where the joker is caught with his pants down on stage. I think the true impact, the one that a society cannot exactly put into words anymore, hits at the very fabric of marriage.

Gay marriage may be the rallying point for moralists everywhere, but the story of Tiger (not so much his individual sins but the hype and hoopla surrounding his crash and subsequent confessions) attacks the institution of marriage just as hard, I think. Here you have, in front of billions of souls worldwide, a man who, in a worldly sense, had everything. A drop-dead gorgeous wife and two beautiful children, more money than he could ever spend, and expertise in his fame-drenched profession. But despite all that Tiger had, there was something he didn’t have. Contentment.

Sadly enough, discontentment among married people often expresses itself in affairs. The lie is that a different partner will bring pleasure, excitement, and adventure, and perhaps those will lead to contentment. But it never comes. Yet that message is never clearly portrayed in the “news” which is supposedly only interested in the facts of life. Although the media has intrusively interfered with this young marriage, it speaks on behalf of a relativistic society that claims no moral judgment may be interposed.

While society and I may not be allowed to judge, God is. Psalm 85:10 says that love and faithfulness are connected. While the news bombards us with stories of sin and unfaithfulness, we need to take notice—there is no love in this story. In Tiger’s marriage, in Tiger’s sexual affairs, love is absent. If we try to permit whole and perfect love into any part of this story, we’re twisting things. This story of unfaithfulness is not a story of love.

I point this out because every time we hear about this story, we think about lust and infidelity—the very enemies of married love. Men and women who aren’t diligent with their thoughts and beliefs, therefore, will welcome their enemies inside, perhaps daydreaming for just a few minutes about a secretive affair or the excitement of forbidden sex. If we compare ourselves to Tiger and Elin—who aren’t content with life—then surely we will be able to find discontentment and ingratitude in our own lives. This is the true, underlying message of every news story released about Tiger, not that affairs cause destruction but that we all have something to be discontent about. I’m troubled by the destruction that follows when discontentment grows.

Tiger Woods sure doesn’t have much peace these days. Sure, none of us know him personally, but it’s not hard to imagine what must be going on inside of him and inside his family. Sad stuff, but not surprising. Peace doesn’t kiss unrighteousness, as Psalm 85:10 says. Peace comes to those who fight to do what is right, and inside of marriage, faithfulness and contentment are God’s absolute commands for loving our spouses.

Our house and our history

Raise your hand if your first ancestor to America is buried in your front yard.

Hmm, no hands. Wait, is that one in the back? No. Just scratching her head.

Well, my hand is indeed up. The picture above is of Joseph Murphy’s tombstone, the first Murphy born on American soil. His father (also Joseph) emigrated from Ireland in 1794 and three years later had a son. Together with wife Alice, Joseph lived his life in Brogue (a few hundred yards from where he was buried) and was a founding member of New Harmony Presbyterian Church. From there, every generation for over 150 years has had a Murphy on the membership roll.

Now, his great-great-great grandson is living on the church property of the church he helped start. That’s cool enough, if you ask me, but there’s another cool connection. Both my great-grandfather and my grandfather were married in this house. It used to be custom for young couples to pay a small fee to have the minister marry them in his home (with his wife as the witness). According to another local pastor, the tradition morphed into the enormous church wedding ceremony we know today when footage and pictures of Queen Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947 convinced every Western woman that the fairy tale could indeed be hers too.

We have been incredibly blessed these past months to live here in the New Harmony manse, but our gratitude doesn’t just stop with these generous people of today. We’re also grateful for the heritage of faith passed down by men and women of God on both sides of our family.

Our manse is like a mansion

For the past five months, we’ve been living in a manse. I had no idea what a manse was before I moved into one, so if you need further explanation, I’m happy to oblige.

A manse is a parsonage or pastor’s house according to the Presbyterian denomination. In days of yore, reverends usually lived on or next to church property. Nowadays, fewer and fewer pastors live like this, so the old houses are either sold or destroyed. New Harmony Church, in Brogue, PA, faced this crossroads in the early part of this century. The manse house next to their church (pictured above) was built in 1899, and its historical significance for this congregation was great. In the end, they decided to refurbish the house with two goals in mind—offices for pastor and secretary and temporary residence for missionaries.

In late 2006, the remodeling project was complete, thanks to hundreds of volunteer hours from the congregation and thousands of dollars of donations. While it was utilized as offices immediately, its second purpose (two bedrooms and one bathroom for missionaries) wasn’t realized for about two years. How we came to be the first residents is really a cool “hand of God” story.

Having grown up just 10 minutes north of the church, I had memories of this place from summer picnics and family reunions on my mother’s side. I also knew that my uncle, great-uncle, and grandfather attended the church. What I didn’t know was how deep my Murphy family history was at New Harmony (more on that tomorrow) or how a family inheritance paid for much of the renovation of the manse.

My grandpa Workinger (now in glory), who was known all over our county as a gifted tenor vocalist, had a close cousin who attended New Harmony. Cousin Walt and his wife didn’t have any children, and they intended for some of their inheritance to pass to my grandfather if they died before he did. Alas, Walt’s wife Hilda passed a few years after Grandpa Workinger, and so the full amount of their will came to New Harmony. Hilda was pleased to learn that her money (as well as others contributed by New Harmony members) would go towards the manse project. It’s fascinating to see how God orchestrated that “family” money to bless family members in ministry (and others outside of our family in the future of course).

Monday, I'll post the “other side” of my family connection to New Harmony.

Final thought on Heaven

Like I said, Heaven is a life-changing book. If it's real and if all the Bible tells us about it is true, then we'll spend infinitely more time "there" than we will here on earth. It also makes sense that our thoughts and focus should be on "there" infinitely more than it is.

Alcorn relates this story: Florence Chadwick, a great swimmer who had already swam the English Channel, attempted to swim from Catalina Island to mainland California in 1952. It was a rainy, foggy day, and her mother encouraged her from the rescue boat for miles past her point of exhaustion. Yet, she quit less than a mile from the shore.

Afterwards, Chadwick said, "All I could see was the fog..I think if I could have seen the short, I would have made it."

Amidst life's fog, I pray that you will have a clear vision of what God has in store for you for eternity if you've put your faith in Jesus Christ. Heaven helped me.