Stewart Family Found Comfort in Golfer’s Tragic Death
"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." (Romans 1:16)Funeral services for soon-to-be golfing legend Payne Stewart were held recently at the First Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida, just four days after his chartered Lear 35 jet crashed in a South Dakota pasture.
Stewart won three major championships and 15 other titles during his twenty years of professional golf, but his U.S. Open victory at Pinehurst last June was as memorable as any national championship I’ve ever watched.
It was great to see and hear a man who was revered by millions give his faith the credit for helping to produce his final victory. "I’m so much more a peace with myself than I’ve ever been in my life," Stewart was quoted to say. "Where I was with my faith last year and where I am now is leaps and bounds."
Perhaps the saddest thing about his death is how much the national media has ignored the change about which Payne Stewart wanted everyone to know. I couldn’t help but shake my head in disappointment after I read accounts of the family’s statement, read by a friend to the media that had swarmed around his home on Monday afternoon: "We appreciate the heartfelt love and kindness shown by our friends and loved ones in our loss of Payne…Please keep the Stewart family in your prayers, along with the families of Robert Fraley, Van Ardan and the two pilots."
Sadly, most television and print media reporters left out the middle sentence: "We know he is with the Lord and in that we take comfort."
I was also disappointed to hear 1999 Ryder Cup Team Captain Ben Crenshaw characterize Stewart as a man who had a "wicked" sense of humor and "loved to party". He knew that was the "Old Payne Stewart" and seemed to purposely ignore what we now know was obvious to everyone in professional golf.
The truth is the WWJD bracelet that Stewart wore on his wrist during last June’s U.S. Open Championship represented a major change in the way this man now looked at life. Sometime between 1994 and last Monday, Stewart took account of his life and committed the rest of it to Christ. He once told a USA Today reporter that the change began when he watched how fellow golfer, good friend, and born-again believer Paul Azinger had responded to cancer in 1994. "I started talking to Paul about it and saw that he had this unbelievable faith," Stewart recalled. "That started me going in a more spiritual direction."
But Jim Sheard and Wally Armstrong in their upcoming book, Finishing the Course: Strategies for the Back Nine of Your Life, believe that the change in Stewart was much more recent. In fact, just last week, Stewart read and personally approved their account, which reads: "For Payne Stewart, this was not some hackneyed cliché. It was a revelation of his newfound faith in Christ as his Savior. He now trusts God for the provision of his strength and for the needed balance in his life."
Well you might fool a couple of authors about where you are in your walk with Jesus, but you’ll rarely fool your own mother, who once described her outspoken son as "rude". Bee Stewart recently told a Sports Illustrated reporter, "Payne talks with God now. He’s a different man, a better son."
You bet he was a different man. Over the last five years Stewart lent his name and energies for charity golf tournaments, most recently the Orlando Children’s Charities. In the five years since the tournament began, it has raised nearly $500,000 for children’s organizations.
But Stewart also put his own money where his mouth was. Less than two weeks ago, he gave $500,000 to the First Foundation, the fund-raising arm of his home church. "Tracey and our kids have more than we deserve, that’s just the way it is," Stewart was quoted as saying. "So it’s not hard to give something back."
Stewart’s pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Jim Henry, said Stewart "was a wonderful Christian who had Christ in his life and somehow in his death. That brought a great sense of peace to his family in a difficult and tragic time."
So you can see how Payne Stewart’s family was able to find comfort in the middle of tragedy. They know that their husband and dad knew Jesus and they know that Jesus once said, "I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." (John 5:25)
Payne Stewart heard that voice loud and clear.
Facing The Trials of Life With Joy
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds." (James 1:2)History tells us that Thomas Edison invented the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent light, the storage battery, movies with sound, and more than 1,000 other things. The truth is the quality of our lives has been immeasurably improved by the genius of a man who overcame dyslexia and found that there was a great deal to learn from the failures and trials that life brought his way.
In 1914, the laboratory where many of Edison’s inventions were birthed caught on fire. Fire companies from eight surrounding towns responded, but inadequate water pressure and intense heat left firefighters with nothing more to do than watch two million dollars in assets that were insured for only $238,000 burn to the ground.
The inventor’s 24 year-old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father, worrying that he might have been trapped in the structure. When he found his dad, he was calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind.
"My heart ached for him," said Charles. "He was 67—no longer a young man—and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, ‘Charles, where’s your mother?’ When I told him I didn’t know, he said, ‘Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.’ "
The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew."
It is hard to face our trials with the spirit that was found in Thomas Edison, but that’s exactly what God expects us to do. You see God knows that real spiritual growth can only come from and through the trials that he allows to come our way. They are ultimately what form the basis for the joy that Christian maturity brings with it.
I ran across a poem recently that’s worth putting on our refrigerators and thinking about when trouble finds us. I don’t know who wrote it, but I sure know the One who inspired it:
It’s sometimes very difficult
For us to understand
The wisdom and the love behind
The things that God has planned.
But we wouldn’t have the rainbow
If we didn’t have the rain;
We wouldn’t know the pleasure
If we never tasted pain.
We wouldn’t love the sunrise
If we hadn’t felt the night;
And we wouldn’t know our weakness
If we hadn’t sensed God’s might.
We couldn’t have the springtime
Or the yellow daffodil
If we hadn’t experienced
The winter’s frosty chill.
And though the brilliant sunshine
Is something God has made.
He knew too much could parch our souls
So He created shade.
So God’s given us a balance:
Enough joys to keep us glad,
Enough tears to keep us humble,
Enough good to balance bad.
And if you’ll trust in Him you’ll see
Though yesterday brought sorrow,
The clouds will part and dawn will bring
A happier tomorrow.
Children Have No Constitutional Right To Pornography
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)Several of my readers have told me how surprised they were to learn that a child could walk into a public library and access pornography through the Internet.
But one reader really struck a chord with me.
"I don’t disagree with you about pornography and children," he said, "but how do you get around the Constitution. Children, just like the rest of us, have a First Amendment right, even if it involves indecent materials. The Constitution makes no distinction about age."
Most of us would agree with him. Perhaps that explains why we take such a lackadaisical attitude towards trying to change long-standing practices in public institutions that do not conform to our Christian principles--We will be made to look like we don’t support the Constitutional rights of others. So rather than seek to educate those who determine what we are allowed to do and say in our public institutions, we look the other way with a live and let-live philosophy. Is it any wonder our children can’t pray in school the way we did?
My friend is right: The Constitution doesn’t make any distinction about age when it comes to the First Amendment rights of children. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to allow them to walk into a public library and look at or read anything that their little hearts desire as long as they have the permission of their parents. If that were true, then how can we create laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to a minor? Think about it, we won’t let a child go to a store and buy a pack of cigarettes, but it’s okay to allow them to use a computer terminal and poison their minds with pornography? As my dad use to say, "That just doesn’t hold water."
Interestingly, the author of one of the country’s leading textbooks on the First Amendment, William W. Van Alstyne, a professor at the Duke University School of Law, also doesn’t agree with my friend about a child’s right to access pornography over the Internet at a public library.
"Children don’t have the same First Amendment rights as adults", said Van Alstyne, "though they do have some First Amendment rights." He argues that children’s right to free speech "are diminished in direct proportion to youth—the younger the child, the greater the degree of permissible regulation of what he may have access to".
Van Alstyne points out that the rule of thumb stems from the same common sense reasoning that would hold that our children should have limited access to cars or matches, depending on their maturity. "There isn’t any doubt that at some age it is preposterous that a child has a right to go to a store and buy matches. At that point, he has neither the experience nor the gray matter to act in his own best interest."
Most public library officials across the country are being advised by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association that they cannot filter Internet access at their libraries for children. The advice is based upon a recent federal district court ruling emanating out of eastern Virginia that outlawed a Loudoun County, Virginia public library from filtering Internet access on its terminals.
But what these legal eagles are not saying is the Loudoun County Library was filtering Internet access for any library user. While I agree with the implementation of such a policy, the problem is the Constitution does not. It’s crystal clear, at least for now, that adults have the right to unfettered access to Web sites, and that’s why the Court held for the plaintiff in the case.
But Van Alstyne argues that a policy that filters Internet usage for children is not likely to get the cool reception in the federal courts that the ACLU and the ALA predict. "It is almost certain to win judicial acceptance by the Courts," he recently told one reporter.
So you see, it’s real important that we don’t get rattled by half-truths that the spin meisters use to win us, or library officials, over to their side. Just because God expects us to respect those who are seated in government, doesn’t mean that we can’t question a policy that we believe is morally wrong, and give our officials the ammunition to change it.
So if your library has not yet installed filters on its computers, ask God to help them right what is a serious wrong with their Internet usage policy. And when they do, be the first to applaud them for the showing the courage to admit that their "tap on the shoulder" policy is not in the best interest of your children or your community.
Children Should Not Have Access to Internet Pornography
"In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." (Matthew 18:14)Make no mistake about it: We will be held accountable for the "little ones" that we lose. It’s a heck of a promise, but it’s one that God intends to keep because children are precious gifts in his eyes. So he will not listen to our excuses about why we didn’t pay closer attention to the threats on the moral fabric that he desires to weave into their lives.
My wife and I realized that our computer represents the greatest threat in our home to the moral fiber of our children. Properly used, it is a powerful asset, but it’s also the modern-day equivalent to matches for the child who is allowed to play on it without supervision. What’s more, you may never be able to put out the fire that your child starts from an addiction to pornography.
I can’t tell you how shocked we were to see some of the websites our children had visited. It required immediate and decisive action.
The first lesson we learned is that our children are just as literate on computers as we are. In other words, you’re not going to outsmart them without some help.
We turned to James Dobson’s organization, Focus on the Family, and found a wealth of information at their website, www.family.org. It was research largely from that website that convinced us to change Internet service providers to one that filters what our children may see. They’re not perfect, but they are a great asset and can help you police where your children are heading on the information highway. If you’re interested, look at American Family Online, Integrity Online, Mayberry USA, or Rated-G Online. All of these providers carry the endorsement of Morality in Media and offer high-quality, reliable connection services.
Another thing we realized is that our First Lady was right about something she once said: It really does take a village to raise a child.
I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear that our public library does not use filters on its computers, so I visited our library this week to see for myself. Even though I sat within public view of the attending librarian, I found that my access was as about as open and unrestricted as if I were sitting in my own home.
Over 1600 public libraries across the nation have installed Internet filtering software on their computers, which begs the question, has your library installed filters on its computers?
For one thing, many library officials are afraid that such an action may bring a constitutional challenge on the grounds that it restricts free speech. In fact, it’s one of the first things that two of our library officials said to me, in spite of what the United States Supreme Court said in a 1973 landmark decision: "This much has been categorically settled by the court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment".
I was even more saddened to learn that the American Library Association is discouraging public libraries from filtering Internet access. They’ve even published an article that offers instruction about how to by-pass filters when using computers that have them. "The role of libraries," they say, "is to provide access to information that people want and need."
It’s about time we stopped worrying about what the American Civil Liberties Union might do if our community takes a stand against pornography at its public library and worry about what God might do if we don’t. This much I know: When we face him, the ACLU and the American Library Association won’t be around to defend our silence.
Whether you like it or not, you have been called to serve as salt and light. If we are ever to have any chance to preserving Christian values in our communities, we’ve got to get off the sidelines and muster the courage to say, "Enough is enough".
I can’t think of a better institution than the public library to begin to make a statement about what kind of community we desire. Our library officials need our support. I believe most of them agree with me and would love nothing better than to see a public library that is free of the decadence and filth that is perpetrating the minds of our children, but if they don’t hear from you, nothing will change.
Get on the phone and give them a call. Find out if they have filters installed on their computers. If they don’t, let them know that you support an effort to police what a library patron might be able to see or read on a computer that your tax dollars bought. Ask for the names and addresses of their board members and take the time to call or write them. Public response can and will make a difference.
Jesus once said, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." (Luke 12:48) Take that verse to heart and lend the Lord a hand on this one.
Pornography Is A Growing Threat
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21)I once knew a Christian who became so convicted about what his family was watching on television that he put it out in the street. When I asked him why, he told me it seemed to be just the right place for it. "I realized it belonged right next to the other trash I had set out to be picked up," he explained.
He was often the subject of a lot of jokes. Regretfully, when I was an unbeliever, I even laughed about it until one of my friends told me, "He’s not as stupid as you think".
He’s right. Our televisions, and now our home computers, offer unlimited access to pornography. Twenty-five years ago, the sale of pornographic materials was estimated to generate less than $5 million in this country. But in 1998, the sale of sexually explicit material raked in more than $8 billion.
Did you know that over one million pornographic sites are currently operating on the Internet, catering to every imaginable sexual proclivity and fetish? Playboy’s website alone receives over 5 million hits a day, which just begs the question, Do you really know what your children or grandchildren are doing when they sign on with the Internet Service Provider you pay for each month?
Personally I believe pornography is one of the greatest threats to the Body of Christ. That’s exactly why the Apostle Paul said to the church at Corinth, a decadent city where sexually immorality was rampant, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?" (1 Corinthians 6:15)
There are a lot of Christians who claim that the Bible is silent on the issue of pornography. They are wrong! Did you know that the Greek word Paul used for sexual immorality was "porneia", the root word for pornography?
No one wrote more eloquently against sexual immorality than the Apostle Paul. In 1 Thessalonians 5:22, he pleads with us: "Abstain from all appearance of evil." And in Galatians, he reminds us, "The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict." (Galatians 5:17 NLT)
If you use pornography, or allow it in your home over your computer, you’re not living in God’s will because the Bible says, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you." (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7)
There are many across our country, even right here in Griffin, who will say, "Listen, the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and whether we like it or not, that includes pornography." I don’t agree, but more importantly, there’s a higher authority who doesn’t agree either and he’s pretty clear about what he plans to do with those of us who use it or allow our children and grandchildren to use it.
So don’t listen to what the world says, listen to God, who once said about the world, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." (Proverbs 14:12)
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