PDL: Day 3

"Everyone's life is driven by something." I think the challenge is we are driven by different things at different moments. One moment we are driven by the most noble or even most pious of motivations. In another by our more selfish inclinations.

For me, I think the challenge may be that while I desire to live for God and to follow God's will for my life, my internal "drives" are not always toward God's calling. Like most people I know, I would like to make more money. I would like to be famous. I would like recognition for my accomplishments. I would prefer to protect myself and mine from suffering. I want justice (or at least what I perceive as being just) when I am wronged. In short, what I am driven to seek on occasion conflicts with what God wants for me.

So what is the solution? Commitment.

I must commit to my life direction. It is my pre-choice choices that determine which drives will rule in any given situation. I must commit to the God-given purpose for my life.

Rick says, "Without a purpose you have no foundation on which to base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources." And, "People who don't know their purpose try to do too much — and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict." While I agree with him. I don't think simply "knowing" my purpose is enough. I have to be committed. I have to choose now, before my other drives kick in, that I am unwavering from that purpose.

Rick is right when he says, "Purpose creates passion." But need creates desperation. We must decide now to commit to our God given purpose. There will be moments when it would be easier not to follow God purpose for our lives. There will be moments when it will even seem more advantageous to us to follow another desire. Deviating from our purpose could me more money, fame, adventure, etc.

To truly be driven by God's purpose means deciding now to sacrifice those other opportunities. It means to be committed to God's purpose above our own ambition, needs, or desires.

At least that's what I think.

What are your thoughts?

PDL Day 2

I am not an accident. God created me on purpose and with purpose. That is easy to remember when I am reflecting on dreams and calling. It is not so easy to remember when things don't seem to work the way I think they are supposed to.

Like when I am told at the age of 28 that I have a life threatening heart condition that requires near immediate surgical intervention. Or when I swing a golf club wanting one result and getting another. Or when I step on the scale...

There are definitely moments when I have trouble not looking to heaven and pointing out to God that He made more than a few mistakes when he created me.

But I was created on purpose. I wasn't just made, I was designed —just the way I am. For some reason I feel like we have all been made like piggy banks with out a stopper. God puts his love, grace, mercy, joy, and peace inside us and we walk around spilling it out everywhere we go.

To us it feels like we are falling apart. To God it looks like fulfilling his purpose to carry love into every corner of the world.

So the next time something reminds me of my imperfection, perhaps I should remember that I am broken by design and with purpose. These moments are my opportunity to share all God has done for me. And one day, I am promised perfection. One day I will be broken no more.

It All Start's with God

Before I jump into this, I should set it up by saying that I will be blogging my way through Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life. As my friends and family know, I will be starting law school in August. As the days march me closer to the start of a new school year, I am endeavoring to constantly be cultivating a sense of calling in my life. It is my hope that as I walk through Purpose Driven Life over the next forty days my sense of calling will become more clear.

Thanks for reading and commenting. Hope my journey can help you too.

"Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." This quote from Bertrand Russell, a philosopher and atheist who lived from 1872 to 1970 (thanks wikipedia), leads directly to Rick's simple statement, "It's not about you."

It's not about me... I think I grasp that... As I survey the next steps in life and plan my future, I think I understand that I am not at the center of the universe or even my own little world. Thanks to years of Bible training and pew filling, my brain tells me that my place or my purpose in the world is given to me by God and not discovered by trusting my heart or soul searching.

Here's my challenge: I believe that I am following God's purpose for my life, but I don't know what that purpose is exactly. Right now, my least favorite question in the world is, "Why do you want to go law school?" (Or some other variation of that.) I hate the question because I don't have an answer that satisfies those asking. If I am honest, my answer doesn't really satisfy me at times. The only answer I can offer is that I feel it is something to which God has drawn me. I don't know what comes after law school. Maybe firm work. Maybe back to church work. Perhaps a combination of the two. It could be something completely different. I don't know. That is what scares me.

Embracing the idea that it is not about me seems like a simple move from a self-centered to a God centered life. But is is more than that. It is a transfer of dependence. If life is not about me, life doesn't depend on me. Living a life that is not about me is more than an exercise in unselfishness. It is trusting. It is waiting. It is listening. It is searching. Perhaps more than anything, it is surrender. Surrender of my will, my way of doing things, and my desire to impress family and friends with a well thought-out answer for questions like, "why law school" and "what is after."

I guess the answer is, it's not about me.

New Year's Resolution Update

So for my New Year's Resolution, I put an agressive reading plan in place. I wanted to develop more discipline in my life, as well as grow in as many ways as I could. That said, I did not miss one day of reading in January. Here is a list of books I completed in January:

From the Bible:

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles

From the Library:

Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian
The Pursuit of God bu A.W. Tozer
Criminal Procedure: The Constitution and the Police by Robert Bloom and Mark Brodin
Sheet Music by Dr. Kevin Leman
God Behaving Badly by Dr. David Lamb
Waking the Dead by John Eldridge
Relational Intelligence by Steve Saccone
The Law of Torts: Examples and Explanations by Joseph Glannon
An Introduction to Legal Reasoning by Edward H. Levi

A Brief Thought on the Death Penalty

As a Christian, I have the responsibility to filter everything in life through my worldview. This includes cultural issues which can be quite difficult to navigate. An often debated and controversial practice in the US is capital punishment. I have personally encountered many individuals who point back to the Christian Bible as defense of the death penalty. They reference passages like Exodus 21:23-45 which reads,"But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." While religious fervor and a desire to "please God" is admirable, I do not believe this small portion of biblical text fully expresses the intent of what is being communicated.

First, we must remember that the Bible is to be viewed in it's entirety and not simply verse by verse or even book by book. When we examine extreme passages in light of their culture context and in light of the human ideal projected in scripture, particularly in the New Testament, they begin to take on meaning beyond what the words and phrases mean alone.

Second, the Bible is a book of progress, a story of culture moving forward. When we encounter passages such as Exodus 21, it is important to understand the purpose. In a time when a single violent act quickly escalated into clan warfare and the death of entire families and villages, a law that limited the violence is a great step forward.

Third, we do not find a New Testament reference to capital punishment as an appropriate act. In the New Testament, the death sentence is given and carried out by the villains of the story, not by heroes such as Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, or Stephen.

Finally, Romans speaks to the fact that Christ has fulfilled the law. This refers to not just a few verses in Exodus, but to the whole of the Old Testament law. In the Gospels, we are given a new law through Christ — to love God and love people.

So as a Christian, I do not believe the death penalty is morally right and can therefore not support it. But what options do we have? Are there any correctional actions we can take that are moral and that appropriately address our need for justice? Yes. I believe that incarceration is the remedy we seek. However, I do not believe that the modern American approach to prison is harsh enough.

I believe that violent crimes such as murder and rape should carry not just long or life prison terms but should also carry hardship beyond a cell and walls. Luxuries such as education, television, physical fitness equipment and the like should be denied. I also do not believe that daily necessities should be responsibility of the state. Food, toiletries, medical supplies, and medical care should fall to the wrongdoer and his family.

 This blog post is an official entry for the Law Blogger’s Scholarship, sponsored by The Law Office of Joshua Pond, http://www.joshuapondlaw.com.

A Game of Inches

1 Kings 21:1-20

1 King Ahab had a palace in Jezreel, and near the palace was a vineyard owned by a man named Naboth. 2 One day Ahab said to Naboth, "Since your vineyard is so convenient to the palace, I would like to buy it to use as a vegetable garden. I will give you a better vineyard in exchange, or if you prefer, I will pay you for it." 3 But Naboth replied, "The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance that was passed down by my ancestors." 4 So Ahab went home angry and sullen because of Naboth's answer. The king went to bed with his face to the wall and refused to eat! 5 "What in the world is the matter?" his wife, Jezebel, asked him. "What has made you so upset that you are not eating?" 6 "I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or to trade it, and he refused!" Ahab told her. 7 "Are you the king of Israel or not?" Jezebel asked. "Get up and eat and don't worry about it. I'll get you Naboth's vineyard!"

Here we have what seems like an innocent offer. Ahab, the king comes to Naboth, a guy who owns a vineyard and says, “You know, you’re land is really conveniently located near my palace. What do you say I give you a better vineyard in exchange for it, or I will pay you for it.

To us, this sounds like a reasonable offer...

It sounds reasonable because there are cultural elements at play we don’t understand. What happens if Naboth sells or trades his Vineyard:

-He gets a better Vineyard or a large sum of money.

-If takes the money, it is soon gone. If he chooses to trade, because of Jewish property laws like Jubilee, in 50 years (maybe less), he has to give the Vineyard back to the King.

-He does not get his Vineyard back in Jubilee because he has surrendered his land to the King.

He may benefit greatly in the moment, but further down the road, he would have robbed himself, his family and his family’s future from their Godly inheritance. You see if you are an Israelite living at this time in Israel’s history, your land is the inheritance from God. It is the gift God has given you and that gift represents a future promise from God. It represents a hope beyond this life. That gift of land tells you, your family, your friends, that there is a promise from God that he will take care of you, even after

you have left this life.

What we see in Naboth is a man who so values his God, that he refuses to compromise even in the small things. If we pause to be honest with ourselves, would we see this kind of intense love for God? Are we working to protect the inheritance that God has put in our hearts? You see, Jesus is our inheritance. Are we protecting our relationship with him?

I don’t think most of us sell out everything in a moment. I think the devil knows we are too smart for that. I don’t see very many people randomly convert to Buddhism...

In other words, we don’t sell the whole Vineyard at once. Rather, we sell it off a little at time. We don’t sell out all at once, but we make little compromises. We don’t sell our whole Vineyard but we give it away one inch at a time.

INTEGRITY IS SACRIFICED DAILY ON THE ALTAR OF CONVENIENCE.

Lessons from My Two Year Old

Tonight, I am sitting on my couch, looking up at my son's "Happy Second Birthday" that is still hanging on my living room hall. It is difficult for me to imagine two things: 1) Is he really already two? 2) Was there really ever a time he was not apart of my life? In two years of knowing him he has taught me so much:

- We are free to be ourselves. From the moment he found his personality he has refused to hide it. He is all Brayden all the time. Whether he is rocking his guitar, singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," or simply running through the house laughing and then falling, he only knows how to be himself. He doesn't have to pretend. I don't think we do either. We are free to be ourselves.

- We don't have to be afraid of gravity. Even though I have seen him tumble over couches, out of bed and I have watched him leap off of every scalable surface in my house, he continues to jump. It doesn't seem to matter that he has bruises and bumps. It doesn't matter that he doesn't always land favorably. He still dares and risks. He has no fear of gravity. We don't have to be afraid of all the things that seem to pull us back to the earth when we attempt to dream and risk the seemingly impossible.

- Everthing we do deserves all the energy we have. When he approaches anything whether playing or wrestling or whining, it gets the whole of his energy. He holds nothing back. I think we should all approach life this way. Everything we do deserves everything we've got. Otherwise, why do it?

- Finally there is nothing that a hug and a smile can't fix. If he falls a hug and smile make it better. If his older brother hurts him. Hug and smile. If he sees me frustrated, he gives me a hug and smile. When I walk through the door with the weight of work on my shoulders and clouding my mind, here he comes with a hug and smile. I wish we could all know that kind of love and trust.

So, to my now two year old son. Thanks for making me a better man. I love you big boy.