I am Lyndon, currently attending a graduate entry LLB at university of York. I was born in China and became a Christian in Hong Kong. Before coming to the UK, I was working with various human rights lawyers in Singapore and China against death penalty and for social justice. Through a Christian connection on LinkedIn, I got to know the Lawyers‘ Christian Fellowship(LCF). It was such a blessing to be able to attend the Students & Young Lawyers conference from February 18th to 20th 2022. The theme of the conference was ”The Old Great Commission in a ‘New Normal‘ World“.
The conference started with storm Eunice. Many of us only arrived on Saturday morning but this did not stop us from enjoying the fellowship with each other and learning the words of God.
The first teaching session was given by Ed Veale on “ Re-aligning with God’s Glory: Knowing our Great Commission and Enjoying our Legal Calling”. The teaching started with questions and discussions on why we want to be a lawyer and God’s heart for work. In my journey of pursuing law, I always took law as a tool against authority that abuses power and to help people in need. My cause seems to be noble. But I never took God into this mission. Law was just a tool for my vainglory rather than to fulfill God's purpose at the end of age. As having been mentioned in the teaching session, God created us in his own image and blessed us with dominion over all created things on the earth ( Genesis 1:27-28). We, as legal professionals, are bearing god’s images and having dominions over many issues. Laws reflect the characters of the makers. As we have read from verses from the Bible, justice is certainly the character of God. We, the fallen but redempted human beings, are called in the profession to bear the image of the just God. Lawyer job might be one of the hardest professions for Christians to bear God's image since we are constantly put on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Stressful work, unfair system, and toxic teammates just make it hard for each one of us to minister Christ to others. Thus, in the second teaching session, Ed Veale talked about “Witnessing to Jesus in the “New Normal” Legal World: Overcoming Obstacles and Seizing Opportunities“.
Ed quoted many verses from the gospel of John, a book of life. "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." (John 15:4) Through this verse, Ed talked about finding Him precious over all things and relying on His power so that we can have a fruitful life. What touches me most is his personal experience with his colleagues. On one occasion, Ed took the brave move to witness to one of his colleagues about Jesus. Somehow this person got quite interested in the gospel and they started to have Bible study together in his firm regularly. By God’s grace, more and more colleagues joined this Bible study. Ed quoted John Scott, “ the most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying. Christians need to look like what they are talking about”. But through our own experience and revelations from the Bible, we are all corrupted and we cannot be like God by our natural efforts. So, only through abiding in Christ can we look like what we talk about. Witnessing Christ to others does not require us to strive through natural strength but abiding in the inner spirit. In ourselves, we cannot love others and minister Christ to them. But in Christ, there is nothing we cannot do.
In the following seminars, we had many discussions on “managing stress and worry” with Elsa glauert, and “how to enjoy a prayer life in a busy schedule” with mark bainbridge. Many
verses were introduced for our practical living. Also, we talked about some practical ways such as exercise, food, sleep and conversations. Many great ideas were mentioned. Mark emphasized the importance of prayers in our daily lives as legal professionals. In great distress, even Jesus prayed to the father (Matthew 14:23). Prayer is about talking to God and allowing God to infuse himself in us. It is the practical way for us to abide in Christ in our daily life. Mark also mentioned we could tell LCF anytime we are under pressure and they will pray for us.
Overall, it was such a great experience with LCF for this conference. We started from revisiting God's purpose in our work and how to witness to others to practical aspects such as managing stress and prayers. It was refreshing to me and caused me to re-consecrate to God on my pursuit of justice in the legal journey. Besides, I got to know many Christian lawyers who truly devote themselves to Christ. It is such an encouragement to me on this legal path. I wanted to end with my favourite verse quoted in the conference.
"Trust in Jehovah, and do good; / Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself in Jehovah, / And He will give you the requests of your heart. Commit your way to Jehovah, / And trust in Him; and He will act." (Psalms 37:3-5)
