Fruit of the Light

Here are two helpful questions when you find yourself in a murky and ambiguous situation.

1. What is Right?
2. What pleases the Lord?

For example, I have two work projects that are to the point of costing me time and detracting from my other commitments. For whatever reason, they simply have gone wrong and the sooner I can be done with them the better. Unfortunately there is no easy out.

I asked myself this morning: what is the right thing to do?

For one project, what's right is easy: fulfill my end of the commitment, tie things off and hope for the best. Easy. For the other that's not so clear: there is no contract, no payment or compensation, and a history of considerable delays that have brought me to a radically different work situation than when I first agreed to the project. In this case, it seems right to simply end the ambiguity by donating my current code and suggesting the client take some time to regroup.

Well, hang on a second, let's take this a step further. Ephesians 5:8-10 tells me to live as a child of the light and "find out what pleases the Lord." So what would please the Lord here?

I am forced to re-evaluate the first project. Simply fulfilling my end of the contract here is not quite enough. I should still be giving my best effort and most graceful management of the project—that means no cut-and-run allowed. Accelerate things a bit, sure. Focus more tightly on the agreed-upon scope, and actively try to wrap things up, but don't just deliver and disappear. Okay, be graceful, duly noted.

My latter project becomes more clear as well: just finish it. Yes, it is impacting my other commitments, and I may have a legitimate out, but commit the project to the Lord and trust in him to take care of the details. At the very least give them something usable before you donate the code and suggest re-negotiation on extra functionality.

So I learn, again, that sometimes asking what is "right" or "justifiable" is not always what is "best." It is an excellent place to start—a good prop, if you will, to pull ourselves to our feet. But in order to truly walk we ought to be focusing our decisions not inward, not outward, but upward.

Proverbs 14:12, 16:25 both tell us, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Too often when I look for what is right I am caught looking for my rights. Perhaps a useful prop, a crutch, a good place to start. But ultimately what is right is simply a subset of love, and is certainly not its substitute in and of itself.

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord." Ephesians 5:8-10

The Golden Rule is useless by itself

I found my way to an article a little with "practical tips" for living your life according to the Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as yourself. A secular article, mind you, but nice enough.

There are some objections in the comments that might make one pause. If you have bad desires, and don’t mind being treated in ways that others would very much mind, then it’s not so good! Or even, the golden rule allows others to impose their rules and morals on you without consulting you at all.

Perhaps. But, then, one ought not forget that the Golden Rule is second to another: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. When you take God out of the equation, or put him anywhere but first, your understanding and execution of love will always be fundamentally flawed.

Only insomuch as you love God will you be able to love anyone else. (And only when we realize and accept God's unconditional love and mercy toward us will we be able to love him in the first place.)