As Iron sharpens Iron,
so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27: 17)

During my life there have been times when I have felt extremely close to God and where he has placed me on earth.  There are other times when I have felt very far from God.  Those times where I felt extremely close to God, I was involved with a small group of men who held each other accountable for the things we struggle with, we studied God’s word together, we helped each other through tough times, we hung out together all the time, and were best friends.

I would encourage everyone to have a group of people who can help keep you “sharp” and accountable.

I went to law school for some selfish reasons. The main reason, believe it or not, was not for the money. I wanted to go to law school so that I would have the education and training I needed so that I could start a business on my own and not have to rely on a large company (or any size company for that matter) to take care of me. That kind of reliance was very risky to me. I was working with a very large engineering design and construction firm who was going through a downturn in the market and laying off hundreds of people from our office. That scared me and I didn’t want to live that life. I wanted freedom to work for myself. Well, I’m not really doing that now – in fact, I work for a small law firm; however, the business plan is ready and I could start my own practice at the drop of a hat if the bottom fell out of the business I am in right now. I guess that’s the freedom I was looking for.

I don’t feel like the broad generality of “practicing law” is a calling at all, and I don’t think that the areas of law that I practice in are my true calling either. I really don’t like one of my practice areas. But, practicing law does allow me to make a good living and earn money so that I can give back to my church and community. Is that a calling? While I am still working through determining what my calling is and how my day-to-day work contributes to it, I am keeping a few scriptures in mind.

The first is Ecclesiastes 9: 10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” and Colossians 3: 23-25, “Whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men”.

I know that I am right here right now for a reason, even if it doesn’t feel like a true extension of my calling. However, I am called to work with all of my heart because I am doing a work for the Lord.

In my opinion, it is extremely important that your work match up with your calling so that you can be totally fulfilled, and because it is important to worship God in all that you do. When you match up your calling with your job, you are able to worship through your work.

Nehemiah was a “foreigner” who worked directly for the king.  I believe he had a pretty good relationship with King Artaxerxes (King A from here on out) because the king asked him what was bothering him.  “Why the long face?”  I know that your body language and facial expressions can give away your mood, but unless you really know someone well, you don’t know if they just always look like that or they are actually having a bad day.  From my experience, I have some friends that just always look like they are strung out on something, but I know they aren’t.  I’m sure people assume that about them all the time and it is wrong.  So I don’t think King A was assuming that about Nehemiah.  I think he knew Nehemiah.

Then, Nehemiah had the guts to tell him what was going on in his head and in his heart.  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t always wanted to get down and personal with my boss.  Most people say that you should leave your personal issues at home and your work issues at work and not let them effect each other.  [Aside: Is this even possible?!?]

If opening up to his boss wasn’t enough Nehemiah went a step further and asked his boss for something.  I have always been nervous about asking people for things not matter what the situation is.  Best selling author, W. Clement Stone said, “If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, then by all means, ask!”  Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.“

People don’t just hand things out.  You have to ask for anything you want that is worth having.  Nehemiah didn’t think there was any chance in the world that King A would give him what he asked for.  But he asked, and asked and asked.  Let me go rebuild the city…give me papers so I can have safe passage…give me timber so I can rebuild the city wall and my house.  And King A said, yes, yes, and yes.  By asking this question, Nehemiah began to fulfill the object of his existence.  Awesome!

My prayer is that the Lord would give me the questions to ask so that I may fulfill the object of MY existence.

There are two more points that I thought were just awesome in chapter two, but you will have to wait until next time to find out.

In high school, he was a major part of several team state championships, he was a region, county, and upper state cross country champ, and won a track state championship as well.  All of this led to some local notoriety and a college scholarship to run cross country at Clemson.

I have to admit, I was always a little jealous of B. J. because I thought it came so easy to him.  He was like Forrest Gump…he just ran and ran and ran.  And was awesome at it.

I also went to Clemson and B. J. and I (along with several other guys from Mauldin, hung out a lot.  We all finally moved in together my junior year (B. J.’s senior year).  B. J. had been called to be a youth minister and he was very passionate about that calling.  He spent a lot of time at our church back home and he took his “free” internship very seriously.

After a few months, he was spending more and more time at home and with the young people at church and less time at Clemson doing stuff we (me and the rest of the guys) felt like he should be doing.  As an aside, I would point out that we weren’t doing any partying or anything bad, but felt like B. J. was missing out on some important times in his life.  We gave him a hard time about it, but he still kept on and eventually, he quit running on the cross country team at school to focus on what he wanted, and felt called to do.

I thought he was crazy!  To me, someone who is not athletically gifted, he was wasting a gift from God.  I thought there would be plenty of time for him to be a youth minister after he finished running and graduated.

After graduating from Clemson, B. J. went on to get his Masters of Divinity and became a youth minister for a large church in North Carolina.

Looking back on those times now, I really respect what B. J. went through (from us) to pursue his calling and to work towards his vision.  I find myself a little jealous of him again.  He clearly sees the vision and the “road map” God has given him.  He never looked back and just went for it.  Sometimes, I feel like a totally average guy who just can’t make up his mind what he is supposed to be doing.

The world needs more people like B. J. who listen to what God has told them to do, and they do it without hesitating.  B. J. dropped some things he had worked extremely hard to attain, and focused on his God-given passion.  My prayer is that I will be able to cut out the crap in my life and focus on what God has given me a passion for.

We lived in this house while I was in law school.  Actually, my wife lived there and I went to law school in North Carolina.  I lived there on the weekends.  So the weekends and school breaks were my opportunities to fix-up the house.  It started on the outside with new vinyl siding and a driveway.  Then landscaping.  We ripped up old bushes and planted new shrubs and flowers.  Added beds and mulch; brought in a lot of top soil and planted grass.  After the outside was fixed up, we worked on the inside.

We re-did the kitchen cabinets, put in tile floors in the kitchen and bathroom, installed a new shower and repainted almost everything.  One of the last detail items to finish was the crown molding in the kitchen and the bathroom.   Since I didn’t know what I was doing, I just bought the little decorative corner pieces at Home Depot that were supposed to make crown molding easy and not require any mitre cuts.  Those didn’t work as easy as they were supposed to.  Actually, they looked awful in our house.  So they came down.

I talked to a guy at church who builds houses and he said, “oh, crown molding is easy, you just turn the board upside down and backwards and it’s done.”

Hmmm…upside down and backwards.  I tried every combination of upside down and backwards I could imagine and still could never get it to come out right.  It was supposed to be so beautiful, but was just plain ugly.

I got to thinking about this some more recently.  God made us is His image, Genesis 1: 27:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

He intended for us to be beautiful – a fine piece of craftsmanship.  But we are all “ugly” in some way.  Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.  No matter what we do ourselves, every time we “make a cut upside down and backwards” the crown molding of our lives just look messed up.  Jesus Christ is the master carpenter who makes all things new and makes all things beautiful.  Do you know Him?