I just attended the annual conference of the Christian Legal Society, which was held in La Jolla this year. There were about 150 law students there who are future leaders, passionate young followers of Christ who need our support, example and encouragement. CLS needs the support of Christian attorneys! CLS needs the involvement of more Christian attorneys. I would probably not know many of the Christian attorneys that I know if it wasn’t for CLS!
I wrote this from the CLS annual conference in San Diego. As usual, the conference has been inspirational, but the final night's speaker was extraordinarily incredible. The audience included many really bright, successful attorneys and many others. I can’t believe how many Harvard, Duke and UCLA attorneys are in this group. Yet, the speaker, Bob Goff, could not qualify for law school. He was rejected by seven law schools, and the only way he made it was to literally camp on the bench outside the dean’s office at USD for 2 months. It wasn’t until 5 days into the school year that the dean gave him the right to attend. He said he has never been a scholar, but he is a DOER!
He is a gregarious, complete optimist, constantly smiling contagiously, who sees everything positively. God blessed his law practice (primarily construction litigation with offices in San Diego and Seattle). His life motto is “YES!” So, he decided that however God leads him, wherever doors open, his answer is always “YES!” His presentation was hilarious – I mean really, really funny and my description will not do justice to his presentation. You will need to watch the video.
His family doesn’t have a television, so they were among the last to know about 9/11. When he discussed the issue with his wife and kids, his kids wanted to know what they could DO. He had each child come up with a one sentence statement of what they would like to do. Essentially, each child wanted to encourage world leaders and help them understand that they should be people of HOPE. So, they wrote letters and emails to the leader of each nation in the world and asked three things: (1) Will you come spend the night at our house so that we can talk about hope?; (2) If you won’t come to our house, can we come to your house and ask you questions about hope?; and (3) Can we videotape the interview?
Believe it or not, they received 29 yes responses from world leaders, including Bulgaria, Malaysia, Israel, Switzerland and other nations. So, as a family they went to these nations and interviewed these world leaders. At the end of each interview, they would ask if they could pray for the leader and they were always given permission to pray. The kids are now old enough to travel on their own and are continuing to complete these interviews. They provided a nice red box with the gift of a key to their home to each world leader whom they interviewed, along with an open invitation to come visit.
When Bob’s youngest son was 7 and had a bad cold, he called the White House for his son and asked if the President would speak to his son to encourage him because he wasn’t feeling well. His son spoke with an operator at the White House and felt better very quickly.
This man visited India with his family. They learned about sex trafficking of young girls and the family got involved in buying young girls to keep them out of sex trafficking. They developed a school and a fully staffed ministry to find and rescue these girls. They support staff in India who continue to track down and rescue such girls, placing them in a safe school environment.
Bob visited Uganda with his family and felt called to invest his life in that nation. He is a tall, blond/grey man with very fair skin. He learned of problems with the criminal justice system and of the multitude of issues with child soldiers, most of whom were abducted from their families and forced to kill. He felt that he could use his legal skills to help solve these problems. So, he read the Ugandan Constitution, read the key Ugandan laws, learned how the criminal justice system worked, and began trying to rescue kids lost in the criminal justice system. He is also helping with restoring former child soldiers back into society.
The Parliament of Uganda was so impressed by Bob’s work that they made him a Ugandan diplomat with full Ugandan diplomatic papers and diplomatic immunity (he had to get U.S. State Department approval to become a diplomat for another country). He then felt called to become a Ugandan justice in order to help with the backlog of criminal cases involving minors. They don’t have enough skilled judges to bring minors to trial within 3 years of their arrest!
The Parliament approved a resolution making him a Ugandan justice and he is expecting the President to sign that resolution this week. He is flying to Uganda this week to preside over the first graduating class of a school of almost 200 that he started in an area that was decimated by rebels and where thousands of children had been kidnapped to become child soldiers.
Several months ago he was driving in his jacked-up jeep in San Diego. The jeep is open-air with roll-bars. An 84-year old lady ran a red light and hit him, flipping the jeep. He was not wearing his seatbelt and as the car rolled, he went through the roof and landed on the street in a sitting position. The jeep kept rolling down the street.
He said that after realizing that he was unhurt, his first thought was, “that was thrilling, I want to do it again!” He had a hard time convincing the hysterical older lady that he was not hurt. He sent her flowers!
He ended up buying back the jeep from the insurance company after it was totaled. He still drives it as a reminder of God’s protection, but it is crushed on the driver’s side and pulls hard to the left. It leaks oil constantly.
His message was that all of us have been in wrecks in our life and because of the wrecks we leak oil. The oil is Jesus. Everywhere we go, we should be leaking Jesus – the oil of joy and gladness and mercy and grace that is Jesus working through us.
His challenge was to always be a doer, never a sitter or a contemplator. Do and leak and spread the life of Jesus as long as we have breath! What a great example. I will try to get the video and share this with others. What a tremendous encouragement to be Christ, filled with joy in a dark and hurting world.
So, what are you going to DO to let your life leak Jesus? How are you going to be a DOER? When and how are you going to say YES as Jesus calls. As Bob Goff said, when Jesus calls us we often say, “no way,” but God says “YAWAH!” What are you going to say?
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