MY SIMPLE LIFE

          If I make a confession to you, will you promise not to judge me or peg me forever as arrogant? Here is the confession: when I was still in law school and thinking about the future, my friend Scott and I sat on the bridge spanning the two wings of our law school, where we sat nearly every lunch break. Scott was a year ahead of me and was contemplating his imminent graduation. The conversation led to the usual tortuous questions for graduates. What are you going to do? What do you want to do? What will you settle to do? Not wanting to be the only one in the hot seat, he asked me the same questions. My response was a faltering and embarrassed: “I don’t know. Sometimes, I think I am destined...” and I hesitated. Then, not waiting for me to finish my sentence, he looked straight at me, in that “I feel the same way” way, and said “yes, greatness. I think the same thing.” I was shocked that someone else could feel this sense of destiny. Suddenly, I was not so embarrassed to think I might be destined for greatness. (But it is embarrassing to think how arrogant it sounds...ah well. I think you promised not to judge me.)

  

              I don’t know what I was thinking of, or what Scott was thinking of, when we both blurted out “greatness.” Maybe it was a political life. Maybe it was some sort of high profile job. Maybe it was doing something outrageously brave and risky. Maye it was sitting on the Supreme Court. I really don’t know because once it was revealed to me that we both felt that calling to undefined greatness, and the earth did not swallow us up whole, and a lightning bolt from heaven did not strike us down, there was a sense of relief as well as excitement…maybe I wasn’t so crazy.

            That was more than 30 years ago, and as I read Psalm 37:1-19 today, I realize my goals and my life are much simpler now.  Or maybe my definition of greatness has changed.

            As I read those first 19 verses of Psalm 37 this morning, I realized there were very simple instructions to me:            

• ·         Trust in the Lord
• ·         Do good
• ·         Dwell in the land
• ·         Enjoy safe pasture
• ·         Delight yourself in the Lord
• ·         Commit your way to the Lord
• ·         Be still before the Lord
• ·         Do not fret
• ·         Refrain from anger

        Not one of those instructions has to do with wealth, success in terms of achievement, notoriety, material accumulation or power. In fact, these instructions all point to a fairly simple, relationship oriented life. My relationship with the Lord: trust Him, be still before Him, delight in Him, do good, commit my way to Him. My relationship with people around me: do good, refrain from anger. My relationship with myself: do good, dwell in the land, enjoy safe pasture, do not fret. All of those things are things I can control. I can choose not to fret, to commit my way to the Lord, to be still, to trust in the Lord, to refrain from anger. And frankly, if I have done these things, have I not succeeded in life already? That sounds like a great life to me.

And, if I can live this deceptively simple, but not simplistic, life, here is what I can look to the Lord to do:

• ·         He will give me the desires of my heart
• ·         He will make my righteousness shine like the dawn
• ·         He will make the justice of my cause like the noonday sun;
• ·         I will inherit the land
• ·         I will enjoy great peace.

I can leave the results up to God. I can cease striving.

When I was sitting on the bridge, it was in a period of my life which was marked by striving: striving for grades, for class rank, for jobs, for position. It really was a paradigm of what came next: striving for the next job, the right house, the next promotion, for children and their schools, the right college for them, the right opportunities for them.  And to be blunt, all those things, are not wrong; they just became the objectives, the goals. Those things are not my destiny. 

My destiny is knowing God. My truest greatness is to know God, to be known by Him, and to make Him known. It sounds like a simple life but, honestly, if that life is simple, so be it. It looks like success to me.