Clarifying Your Values

Unbelievable! Their values were exposed. One issued an apology, but I have I've lost some respect for him. The temporary took over from the eternal on the priority list for these guys. The rush out of the gate to begin the baseball season betrayed their hearts. We know the story: Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy missed the first two games to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.

Mike Francesa of WFAN Radio said: "You're a major league baseball player. You can hire a nurse."

Seriously?!

So the value is money not relationship. If you have money it gives you permission to rearrange your values, to rethink your commitments and to miss the things that happen only once.

Absurd! Money can't buy memories.

Boomer Esiason's suggestion that a c-section should have been scheduled demonstrates a complete lack of understanding about the right values, the best priorities, the total commitment of marriage. When you say "I do" you are saying "I no longer belong to myself - I belong to another."

(On listening to to Esiason's "speech" a second time, the thing that caught my attention was his comment about getting back to work because "you can send your kid to any college of your choice." Stunning! All about money. Messed up values.)

We are a sports obsessed culture. I'm a part of it. I enjoy watching sports and playing sports. I spend a lot of time around a pool deck officiating at swim meets. I was a collegiate athlete so I know what it takes to perform at that level. My son is a college athlete. All three of my kids played sports through high school. It can suck you in unless you build some inner braces by having something eternal to be your measure.

The hero is not the one who hits the most home runs. Rather he's the one builds a home for life, for whom the marriage vows are not multiple choice. Money isn't the answer. Some of the most miserable people I know are also the wealthiest.

Baseball will end. Athletic prowess will wain. It's the nature of being human. All the trophies, headlines, awards and records won't make up for the life-long love of another.

As Muriel McQuilkin's alzheimer's progressed, her husband, Robertson, President of Columbia Bible College (now Columbia International University) in South Carolina, resigned to care for her full-time. For 25 years he loved her in the midst of this horrible disease, the vast majority during which she no longer recognized him or reciprocated his love. In an interview back in 2004 he said: 

"Since I've tried to bring my choices under the authority of Scripture, I didn't have struggles about what to do. As I told the students when I resigned from school, this was one of the easiest decisions I ever made." (Christianity Today, February 2004, p. 64)

We all need something to help us straighten out our values. Money won't do it because it comes and goes. Relationships won't do it because people will disappoint us, bodies and minds will break down. We can't decide what to do based on what someone else does, or is no longer able to do. Anything that is temporary can't be the measurement by which we determine our actions.

I'm a Cincinnati Reds fan and I'll cheer for them no matter who they're playing, but when we're playing the Mets and Daniel Murphy comes to the plate, I may temporarily switch my loyalties and let out a little cheer.

Thanks Daniel for not caring about what others think. Thanks for making your wife and family your priority. You are richer than any multi-millionaire ballplayer or broadcaster. When careers are over and voices have been silenced, you will have what no amount of money or fame can buy - the love of a woman and memories that will carry you through the most difficult of days.