Mr. Holland’s Opus

Read: Luke 12:16-21

One of my favorite movies is Mr. Holland’s Opus, starring Richard Dreyfuss. It tells the story of a talented young musician who dreams of creating a masterpiece, his magnum opus, his legacy of genius for history.

Unfortunately, his family needs food and a place to live while the masterwork is in progress, so Mr. Holland takes a job as a public school band director. He is good at the job, but often frustrated as he finds that its demands, and the needs of the young people in his classes, take so much time and energy that he has little left over for composing.

The movie follows Mr. Holland throughout the ups and downs of his adult life, until, at the end [spoiler alert], his dreams of composing fame never realized, he comes to understand that these people were his real opus. The students and family into whom he poured himself over the years were the lasting treasure, the mark of a successful life.

The story rings true for lawyers and, I’m sorry to say, law professors. Many of us dream of making partner, winning the record-breaking verdict, arguing the landmark case in the Supreme Court, being elected to high political office, or appointed as an appellate judge. We tend to assume that our legacy, our mark on history, is found in our achievements within the legal profession.

There’s nothing wrong with those things, but in terms of priority, Luke 12 tells a different story. Not only money, but all the achievements of this world are temporary. They will soon be forgotten by everyone. There is only one thing of permanent, eternal value into which we can invest ourselves: relationships, with God and with other people. Long after our office achievements have been forgotten, the people whom we impacted will be impacting others, who will impact others, and so on.

So the next time you are tempted to think that the “important work” of your day is being interrupted by the annoying client who calls for no real reason, or the secretary who requires way too much hand-holding, or the spouse whose needs are never met, or the children who just can’t understand that you’re too busy, or the waitress at your favorite diner who won’t shut up – take a moment to realize that those people are your important work for the day. God is much more interested in how you impact their lives than He is in one more rewrite of the brief or contract.

~ Prof. Brad Jacob, Regent University School of Law

Finding Rest

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

---- Matthew 11:28-30

My first week in law school (“orientation week”), I was put into a small group of about ten of my peers, and a “mentor” (more properly described as a mere “tour guide,” as our only future interactions with her after that week were brief awkward nods of acknowledgement when we passed each other in the halls) showed us around the various parts of our school’s campus (basically two buildings, one draped in a basic taupe and the other in gray: both were as boring architecturally as the colors used for their exteriors). What stood out was where we were at the end of the tour. By mid-afternoon we were led by our mentor to a bar down the street from the law school. I found this a bit odd. What made this trip stranger still was that we were not the only 1L group there. In fact, our entire first year class, at various points in the afternoon, were led there by their respective tour guides to that same bar. My initial snide thought that our mentor was trying to be cool by leading us here was quickly replaced by a befuddlement most aptly described as “Huh???” Our 2L shepherd informed us that this is the place where most of the law students came to unwind after a long day, week, and/or exam. This was my introduction to how law students find rest.

Over the next three years I learned (and in some cases adopted) other things that the typical law student does to unwind or find rest during law school. These things all fell under the umbrella of “vegging.” I never thought these activities were detrimental in any way. “Vegging” by playing some video games, watching my favorite TV shows, or having a few drinks never seemed harmless (and to a small degree I would still agree with this statement), but what I realized was that these activities were harmful specifically because 1) they were at heart a reflection of my selfishness, 2) they were merely coping mechanisms (and thus in reality just self-help devices), and 3) nothing ever changed as a result. I did not look at my work in a better light nor was I really refreshed.

I realized the harmfulness of these activities through a story that an attorney friend of mine shared with a group of law students.

He told us that he coped well with the regular everyday rigors of his job, but on some days, days during which nothing goes right or everything and everyone require his attention, he was just spent. So spent, in fact, that when he came home, the last thing he wanted to do was talk. This would be fine, of course, if he didn’t have a wife and four kids. He dreaded opening the front door to his house to see his wife and kids, instead of looking forward to it. He dreaded it because he knew that now he was expected to be a husband and a father, but all he really wanted to do was run quickly to his study and fall into his favorite chair and not have to talk or think. He did not want to engage in his world, he wanted a temporary escape, he wanted to “veg,” and he knew this was wrong. This awareness, however, was not the most interesting (and sad) part of my friend’s story. Rather, it was his analysis of why he felt this way. He believed that his desire to simply be alone for a bit, to escape from his world, existed because he was not engaging in an intimate relationship with Christ! He believed that Jesus desired to hear him, engage him, and speak with him, and his own inability to share with Jesus the various things that wore out his patience and energy caused him to want to withdraw, to be just like every lawyer he knew.

He is absolutely correct. As believers we have, in Christ, not just our Savior, Lord, and advocate, but also our counselor, our friend, and our place of rest. In this passage Christ promises rest to the laborers and to the heavy-laden (in other words, all of us!). But this rest comes not just from a once-in-a-while prayer to him when we need him (the preceding passage specifically condemns such thinking – Matt. 11.16-24), it comes from having an intimate relationship with him. In fact, verse 29 is an invitation to a relationship that is personal and intimate. We know that to know God the Father, we must first know the Son, and this in turn helps us to know ourselves. Lest we try to limit what Christ says here as a reference to “merely” keeping the Sabbath, the verses immediately following specifically address the Sabbath, indicating that verse 29 is indeed about the everyday—an admonition to share with him our burden the moment we bear it.

This world, our jobs, and our studies often enslave us. Our desire to worship can get caught up in these things. The gospel, however, is a promise of freedom—but it is a freedom to enter into a relationship. We are being reminded here that we have a higher calling, one that can be seen through how we can find our rest.

So how do you find your rest? Is it with the world? Or with Christ?


~ Dan Kim, Deputy Director of Law Student Ministries, Christian Legal Society

Priorities (Haggai 1:1-11)

Priority setting and time management may be the most important issues in every lawyer’s life. Our money is often limited; but our time is not only limited but stretched beyond its breaking points. Our professional lives are enormously demanding – depending on one’s practice, 60, 70, or 80-hour work weeks may be commonplace. Some lawyers bill 2,500 or more hours per year, and when you add in nonbillable work responsibilities, that leaves only two possibilities:

(i) you are lying on your timesheets, or
(ii) you have no time left for normal human existence.

In addition to our professional lives, most lawyers have enormous responsibilities in the areas of church and community service. Our legal training gives us skills in analysis, planning, speaking, and leadership that are in high demand by most volunteer groups. There are probably few Christian lawyers who are not asked at some point in their lives to serve as an elder, deacon, or committee chair in their local church. We are constantly being called to serve on boards and task forces, to teach Sunday School classes, and to plan special events. Civic and community groups, ministries, and other nonprofit organizations also want to make full use of our skills.

Family relationships, although they can be among the most rewarding aspects of life, also create huge demands on our time and energy. A marriage, even the best marriage, requires lots of serious effort, planning, and communication. Children who are to be raised with a passionate love for God and a solid set of beliefs and values must have the time and attention of both Mom and Dad in abundant supply.

When you add all of this up, it is pretty overwhelming. Sometimes we feel that we must climb out of bed early in the morning and run through the day at frantic pace, extinguishing the most urgent fires until we collapse into bed again at night. What is often lost – not by deliberate choice, but just for lack of time – is any serious focus on our relationship with Christ.

The people of Jerusalem in the day of Haggai faced a somewhat similar situation. Their lives were overwhelming. They were returning from exile to a city and nation that had been completely destroyed. They had to rebuild, from the ground up, their homes, work places, public buildings, houses of worship, stores, walls – everything! If your professional responsibilities seem overwhelming try to imagine doing your work with your office, computer, and files all destroyed. Then, in your mind, level your home as well, and you may have some sense of what the exiles faced when they returned to Jerusalem.

From everything we can determine (primarily the Old Testament books of Ezra and Haggai), these were dedicated, hard working people. They were not plagued by the comfortable, lazy sins that can afflict cultures where life has become too easy and leisure too prevalent – sins like sloth, gluttony, and lust. It seems, instead, that they were working very hard to rebuild their homes and community. They had the “Protestant work ethic” down to a science.

And yet God was displeased. All of their hard work could not earn His pleasure, because the things they were working on were not His top priority. God wanted His temple to be rebuilt before the people finished their own homes. “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

What about us? Are we living in paneled houses while God’s house, His priorities for our life, remains a ruin? If so, the excuse that we were “working hard” will hardly work.