I ran into a guy last week who was looking for answers. He wanted to make sense of nonsense and wanted assurance in the wake of all uncertainty. Life is troubling for him right now.
Because he was in my law office, he apparently hoped the legal system had answers for him. He had a couple of lawsuits in mind, and he wanted my opinion.
He had a lot to say, so I listened patiently. He'd seen a lot of injustice, and he'd been victimized by some circumstances that just weren't right. So was he better off spending his time and energy fighting for what was right? Would that avenue give him the answers he was looking for? These are questions I'm asked all the time. There is something in all of us that wants to fight back when something has happened to us. But in the end I gently told him no, I didn't think the legal system offered him the kind of peace he was looking for. Very often, the only winners in a lawsuit are the lawyers involved.
He paused and said he figured as much. But he still wanted answers to his questions. Like so many people who sit in my office, he was frustrated that there wasn't any sure-fire healing for what he was going through. He had tears when he said this.
Finally, he asked, "What would you do if you were me?"
I hesitated before answering. "Well, we're all different," I said. "What works for one person doesn't always work for someone else."
"Well, I've tried everything -- buying things, running around, and doing anything I please," he said. "Those things don't help at all. I think sometimes they just make everything worse."
I learned a long time ago to recognize an open door when I see it. Like most lessons, I learned it the hard way. I once had a client years ago who asked me a similar series of questions, and hesitated telling him what I really thought, feeling I would offend him if I did. A month later, the polie found him dead in the middle of his living room, surrounded by empty whisky bottles.
I won't let that happen again. So while I don't like street preachers and judgmental religious people, I will not be bashful anymore in telling someone why I go to church. If you ask me, that spiritual connection is the answer all people are looking for, regardless of the problems they struggle with.
I said, "If I don't get my car turned up every now and then, and if I never stop for gas, I'm never going to get anywhere. It's for those same reasons I need to go to church. If left to myself, I'll wear myself out worrying or trying to control everything, and I'll steer myself in all the wrong directions. Church helps me to step outside myself and my problems and look at everything from a different perspective."
He rubbed his eyes. "I hear what you're saying. But I just don't know for sure if all that stuff is real."
I nodded in agreement because that is such a common thought. I told him my lawyer-brain doesn't allow me to believe anything unless there is evidence to support it.
"But you believe God isn't just some farce made up by organized religion?" he asked.
I said I believe God is in fact for real. And then I offered up a few exhibits contained in a great book by Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ.
Exhibit 1 -- The calendar changed 2,000 years ago. Does that happen on a hoax, or does that require something that is truly Earth-changing? I suggested that our modern world has experienced some world-changing events, but none of them have caused us to consider re-defining the calendar.
Exhibit 2 -- Jesus started the Christian movement right in the middle of Jewish territory. That's impossible to do unless there's something very real to support it. How fast would a Michigan fan club spread if it were started right in the middle of the Ohio State campus?
Exhibit 3 -- The overall effect Jesus has had on people, which may be the most conclusive exhibit in the case. There are so many people who can say their life had no peace and no purpose until they finally decided to let Him take control of the events and circumstances of their lives. Wholeness didn't come until they decided to put someone else in charge of their lives. Easter is a celebration of that decision.
"It works, huh?"
"It works for me," I said. "It works for a lot of other people, too."
He grew quiet, as if there was a lot he needed to think about.
Finally, he said, "You know I didn't expect to hear all this from a lawyer."
I said, "I totally get that. But here's the thing with God. He could just pull back the curtain and let us all know for sure He exists. But he prefers to send his message through everyday, ordinary people. I probably heard all of this first from a mechanic, or a plumber. They probably heard it from a carpenter."
I then repeated a line I first heard at my church, "I don't fully understand how it works. But then, I don't know how electricity works, either. I just know it does."
We're all in this together.
He shook my hand and walked out the door. I wasn't sure if he'd fully embraced all the things I shared with him. For a second, I wondered whether I should have just kept my opinions to myself.
Just then the phone rang, and on the other end was yet another person in the midst of a terrible life struggle. This one happened to have a legal solution to it. But not all of them do.
We're all looking for answers, aren't we? The real question is where to look for them.