Many people are familiar with "The Ten Commandments" (they can be found twice in the Bible: once here, and again here), but one of my favorite texts in all of the Bible is the beautiful passage that follows one of the givings of the law. In Deuteronomy 6 the Israelites' are told what their response to God's law (and love) was supposed to be. As I continue to search for God's call for my life, I am continually moved by this passage; however, I have recently found myself grappling with this portion of it.

Deut. 6:5-9
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The implication here is clear: God's commandments (law, love, etc.) are to be on the forefront of our minds all the time. We are to seek God with all of our might. Unfortunately, when I'm studying, teaching, and practicing psychology, it is psychological principles, not truths of the gospel, that I am 'tying as symbols on my hands'. Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy where I am now. I continue to enjoy studying psychology, but I always assumed that it would be easy for me to integrate psychology with serving God. As a psychologist, I thought that I could 'help people.' I assumed that I could teach psychology either at a Christian university (and help Christian students grow in their faith), or at a secular university (and be a light to the darkness).

As of late, I'm not so sure. In my practicum classes I am told that psychologists are only effective if they minimize who they are and maximize the focus on the clients. Sharing my faith would be considered both a procedural and ethical blunder that would hamper my effectiveness as a therapist. (Some of you may choose to argue this point, but I think it's fairly accurate). As an instructor, I am able to show Christ's love to my students, but there are few opportunities for me to share my faith, to share WHY I am so 'nice'.

In all, I have recently found myself wondering whether I could love God with all my heart, soul, and strength as a university professor of psychology and a practicing psychologist. At this point, I'm not convinced that I could. Referring to God and money, the Bible suggests that a person cannot serve two masters, and I'm confident that this applies to all areas of life. The trouble, I'm learning, is that, if I want to excel as a psychologist, I must allow psychology to consume most of my resources, to be my master. And I don't think this is a good idea.

Sarah and I watched "Are You Smarter Than A Moron" again last night. I thought that one answer, in particular, was worth repeating.

Q: "Budapest is the capital of which European country?"
A: "But I thought Europe was a country (pauses). Is France a country? (pauses). Well, I don't know if France is a country, but I guess I'll go with France."

In this person's defense, this question wasn't exactly fair. I remember learning the European capitals in the 7th grade, so perhaps the question was a little advanced. At the same time, I also remember learning that Europe was a continent, not a country, when I was 4, so maybe it's a wash.

At church this morning, it was announced that a couple was celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary. When asked of the secret to their success, the couple responded with some words of wisdom.

Woman: "Always love each other, never go to bed angry, and..."
Man: (Interrupts) "...stay at opposite sides of the house."

Hilarious.

Today I'm going to write everything that comes to mind in the next five minutes, and I'm not going to go through my normal editing process (spelling, grammar, making it interesting, etc.). Prepare to enter my psyche. If you dare. Starting...now.

Theres' a cat on my lab (two errors already; nothing I can do). Anyway, I wonder what would happen if I just pit her on the ear. It doesn't really make sense with the error. I'll move on. In my defense, the cat bites me all the time for now reason. I thought you were moving on. I am was. I just itched my nose but it probably looked like a pick. It wasn't. Not this time, anyway. I thought you were going to write whatever came to mind? YOu're just writing what you're doing. THat's no what comes to mind. YOu know when you don't edite. you're really a tierrible writer. You might think I'm mkaing this up; these arreors, I mean, but I'm not. Learning disability? Probably not, just not a great typer. I am a great ytper. I'm also probably the fastest person you know. That's an inside joke that most of you might not understand. I'm thinking of crickets--because I just went blank for a second, but you woun'dt know that because I just didn't type anything, and you can't really type nothing. Well, you can, but it doesn't really look like anything, which is exactly my point. Anyway, it turns out that give minutes is actually a long time. What are give mintues? I'm pretty sure I was supposed to write five minutes. It also appears that I've completely sotpped yousing the backspoace key. WHich I appearently use a lost. Idd you notice that I just wrote yousing. Not bad. I'm pretty sure that I won't ever do this again, but I really didn't have anything intersting to say today. It really is amazing that I can even write a coherent sentence in real life (you know, when I use backspace keys and eddit for punction, grammar, interst, etc.). I think mmy eye q just went down obout 40 point in most of your minds. Maybe this was just to probve a point about the importance of proofreading. Maybe not.

I'll let you be the deciders. (And the cat just woke up and starting biting me--I knew I should have struck first).

Nothing comes to me today. Oh well. It was a good run.