Murphy is a well-known guest at the party of life, but too often he strives to be the infamous “life of the party” when he shows up uninvited to our ministry affairs. If you have served in a leadership position long enough, I bet that you too have experienced his shenanigans first hand. The keynote speaker to your event has to cancel at the last minute due to a personal matter. You learn that the reserved room at the church has been double-booked. The copy machine ‘dies’ in the middle of running off the beautiful flyers you designed. There is a conflict brewing between a few of your team members. The Power Point presentation you spent hours putting together has a glitch and now the audio won’t play. Or, my personal favorite, a critical team member quits one week before the scheduled event!
As a leader, when Murphy seems to be a little too “up close and personal” for your own comfort, you may feel discouraged. You may begin to doubt your leadership abilities and even question if God may possibly be using Murphy as means to get you to quit your position. You may even reason that if God is calling you to lead in this capacity, then He certainly wouldn’t allow Murphy to show up as often as he does. Instead, He would be blessing the ministry and your attempts to help further His kingdom.
When it comes to Murphy being alive and well in your ministry, girlfriends, you are not alone! Our dear friend, Paul the apostle, can relate. If anyone had earned the right to doubt himself as a leader, question where God was in the middle of his own ministry upheavals, and conclude he obviously must not be doing what God had called him to do (because God certainly wouldn’t call someone to lead in ministry and then allow Murphy to show up as often as he does), it was Paul. In 2Corinthians 11:23-27, Paul gives an account of his own “up close and personal” moments with Murphy. Without a doubt, Paul could be considered a leading authority on the subject of, If something can go wrong (trust me, I know) it will!
When we read all of Paul’s letters, how can we honestly come to the conclusion that if God is calling us to lead or serve in ministry, then what we are leading or serving in should be free from obstacles and challenges? Why do we often insist on coming to the conclusion that if Murphy is absent from our ministries then it is proof we are on the right track? Maybe instead, we might consider coming to the conclusion that if Murphy is present, we may be on the right track!
If Paul viewed the Murphy’s Law syndrome in his life as God closing the door to his ministry and Paul quit, do you realize we would be missing nearly half of the New Testament? Out of the twenty seven books in the New Testament, Paul authored thirteen of them. Without Paul’s contribution, we wouldn’t be inspired by such verses as, “Persevere and don’t give up for at the proper time you will reap a harvest” (Gal 6:9). Or, “We can rejoice when we run into problems and trials, for we know they are good for us— they help us learn to endure” (Rom 5:3).
In 2 Corinthians Paul says, “I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul understood that his personal Murphy moments were but light and momentary troubles that were achieving for him an eternal glory that far outweighed anything he was dealing with on this side of heaven. (2 Cor 4:17)
Paul also understood that our struggles are not against “flesh and blood” but against the “powers of darkness” (Eph 6:12). We can’t get involved in Kingdom work without getting the attention of Satan. There are always two at play in our ministries, ladies. One who wants us serving, and one who does not. We cannot underestimate the power of the one who does not want us serving God. We have a bull’s eye on us. Anything that can discourage us from doing Kingdom work is not out of Satan’s bounds. I believe Murphy is just one of the many tools Satan uses to take our eyes off the goal and cause us to become so discouraged in what we are doing for God’s Kingdom, that quitting our ministry positions often seems to offer us a promise of relief.
When we are on the front lines of the ministry battle, we need to understand and expect that, YES! Murphy moments will come with the territory. Paul’s ministry is a perfect example of this. Satan may have intended that Paul would have felt so discouraged as a result of his Murphy moments that he would have thrown up his hands and declared, “That’s it! I quit!” But because Paul truly embraced, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” what Satan intended, but what God ultimately accomplished, were two entirely different things! What about you? One day (maybe years from now) will you or others look back on the moments when Murphy made an appearance in your ministry and see–that despite what Satan intended–what God undoubtedly accomplished resulted in two entirely different outcomes?