Dear Friends,

People want answers. Lawyers have questions. It is not surprising that lawyers aren’t popular with people who want easy answers.

What does surprise this lawyer is that so few people have questions.

I am talking about not taking life for granted. Relatively few people inquire into the source, underpinnings and future of their existence. Mass marketers depend on this incipient lack of curiosity to sell products and services that people do not need if they think about them.

We need to ask ourselves questions. We grow by challenge and stimulus, not inertia. The ancient philosopher Socrates aptly said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

A law professor taught me the value of frequently asking myself, “What are you doing?” He told our class, “Whatever you do in your personal and professional life, always question your assumptions and make conscious decisions on the evidence. Never simply react to what is going on.”

Experience has taught me that it is not enough to ask, “What are you doing?” I need to ask, “Why am I doing it?”

We do a lot of things out of habit or a desire to win the approval of others. To put it bluntly, “we go along to get along” until we wear a rut so deep that we have a hard time escaping it if and when we desire to do so. This goes for jobs, relationships, religious practices and any other human activity capable of repetition.

There is a reason that we are referred to as “creatures of habit.” Our habits can become so ingrained and controlling that they make us in their image. We are in serious trouble when this is so.

Have you ever driven a heavily rutted road and had wheels track into the rut? It is very hard to get out, even damaging to the tires and alignment. It must be done, though, if we want to get where we need to go.

Honestly asking ourselves, “Why do we do the things we do?” is like wrenching the steering wheel to get loose from the rut. It can be both jolting and relieving.

There is yet another question that we must ask ourselves. “Who am I serving and honoring when I do what I do?”

It is quite possible to be “self-serving.” It is also possible to be “servile,” that is to be cravenly submissive to those we perceive to have power or wealth. Are our work, relationships, and interests God honoring or done for human approval?

Jesus has a harsh question of his own for those who are driven by the approval of others. “How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?” (Jn 5:44).  In other words, you are not a believer in God if what others think about you is the compelling factor in your motives and conduct. This is a point of Jesus’ teaching that is every bit as sobering as it is overlooked.

What am I doing?

Why am I doing it?

Who am I serving and honoring when I do it?

Like the Jordan River that runs fresh and life giving from the slopes of Mount Hermon through the Sea of Galilee and south, but becomes the brine of the Dead Sea when it stops flowing and deposits all the salts and minerals that wash out of the hills and fields upstream, we become full of ourselves and stale when we stop asking these questions.

Asking ourselves these questions focuses and connects us to what and who is really important. This becomes readily apparent when we consider the first and last human questions recorded in Scripture which essentially amount to the same question.

The first human question recorded in Scripture is found in Genesis 4:9 after Cain has murdered his brother Abel in jealousy and anger. God asks Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain replies, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The last question that Scripture says that men and women will ask on this earth is found in Matthew 25:44. When Christ returns in glory to sit on his throne as king and judge of this earth, he will welcome his beloved children into eternal life in his kingdom and praise them for the acts of merciful kindness that they performed in his name.

Christ will then banish the unredeemed to their eternal punishment for not having ministered to his hunger, thirst, illness, poverty and other needs. They will demand of him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?”

Christ will answer them, “Truly, I will tell you, just as you did not do this to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

These two questions, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and “Lord, when did we see you. . . and did not help you?” are, in fact, the same question.

They are the very same question as the one asked by a lawyer that stirred Jesus to tell the parable of “The Good Samaritan” in answer. “Who is my neighbor?” asked the persistent lawyer.

Jesus responded by telling him the story of the man who was assaulted by robbers and left to die, unaided by two religious leaders passing by. He was saved by a member of a despised ethnic and religious minority who ministered first aid to him and generously provided for the victim’s follow-up care. Jesus concluded his answer to the lawyer with a question: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

“The lawyer replied, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’ ” (Lk 10:25-37).

All three questions go to the same point: Are we responsible for the well-being of the people around us?” God’s answer is a clear and succinct “Yes.”

The Biblical narrative of the three questions reveals evasion and a search for loopholes. Fallen, sinful men and women seek to evade responsibility for the care of others. Cain appealed to individual autonomy to avoid responsibility for Abel’s absence. The lawyer sought a definition of “neighbor” to limit the scope of who he was commanded to love. Those condemned at the final judgment will try to offer the defense that their indifference and unkindness to others wasn’t directed at Christ and therefore should not be held against them.

God does not accept the defenses. His answers permit no loopholes.

Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes.

Who is my neighbor? You are a neighbor to everyone.

Lord, when were we unkind to you? When you are unkind to anyone you are unkind to me.

When I was a young lawyer, I pretty much thought that making the case was what counted regardless of the cost to people. I was shrewd, tough and not kind. “The law is the law, principle is principle and too bad for you if you don’t get that” was my philosophy.

The problem is that people are different in understanding, resources and ability to respond. There can be a big difference between what is legal and what is fair.

Some clients liked my style. They started referring other clients to me who told me, “They say that win, lose or draw you will take a pound of flesh and scorch the earth for us.”

I’d become intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ about that time in my career. Things that were fine before, now weren’t O.K..

It isn’t that Jesus asks us to be soft in seeking justice. In fact, he requires us to do justice, but to balance justice with a love of mercy and humility in our relationship with God (Mic 6:8; Mt 5).  Harshness does not make justice any more just in Jesus’ way of thinking.

We don’t just get to emulate the parts of Jesus that we find attractive or convenient. That just keeps our flesh in the mix with all its sin and failings. No, Jesus takes over our life with his life and he refuses to coexist with our strength. We either surrender everything, even our best abilities, to him or else we have no part of him.

When Jesus is on the move in our life there is a pressure in our soul to lean his way. He is persistent, but he never forces us. Feeling his pressure, I asked the questions. What are you doing, Kent? Why are you doing what you do, Kent? Who are you serving and honoring when you do it, Kent?

The answers were I was acting in self-serving, self-righteous arrogance and I definitely was honoring Kent, not Christ. It is devastating to be faced with the need to repent for the very thing that makes your reputation and livelihood–to give up a talent. But repentance was necessary and I am still on the road back from that time.

I am still tough. Jesus didn’t take that away from me. It is, to be sure, always necessary to take a stand for principle and due process even when it runs counter to the tide of emotions or is difficult and misunderstood. People will always disagree about the outcome of a conflict. The point is to make the case on the merits with the appropriate process and leave it there, but to never forsake kindness which is a temptation that I wrestle with.

Asking the questions focuses me on seeking God in every situation. Asking the questions reminds me that I am a servant and my obligation is to honor my Master, Jesus. Asking the questions brings me back to the truth that I am the neighbor with an obligation to show mercy to whoever needs it, and who doesn’t? Asking the questions quiets my soul in the presence of the Lord.

Asking the questions calls me to live the difference of the kindness of the “Good Samaritan” described by the author Thomas Cahill:

As we stand now at the entrance to the third millennium since Jesus, we can look back over the horrors of Christian history, never doubting for an instant that if Christians had put kindness ahead of devotion to good order, theological correctness, and our own justifications–if we had followed in the humble footsteps of the heretical Samaritan who was willing to wash someone else’s wounds, rather than in the self-regarding steps of the priest and the immaculate steps of the Levite–the world we inhabit would be a very different one (Thomas Cahill, Desire of the Everlasting Hills [New York: Doubleday, 1999], p 185).

If you are stagnant or confused in your work, your relationships or your spiritual life, I recommend to you the questions: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Who am I serving/honoring when I do it? Ask these questions with an honest heart before God and you will discover that you are a neighbor with an astonishing capacity for mercy.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.

Kent and his beloved Patricia are enjoying their 31st year of marriage. They are the proud parents of Andrew, a college student.