When I was heading off to law school many of my believing friends remarked, “Oh, that’s wonderful, we need (or sometimes even, ‘God needs’) more Christian lawyers.” They were enthusiastic about the idea that I could bring about change: “Change” with a capital “C.”

Their assumption was that God would use the Christian lawyer, and the law, to change things in some large or lasting way, especially regarding laws addressing key social or political issues, such as abortion rights or sexual behavior.

They assumed that a Christian lawyer who knew the Truth and also the law would somehow be able to connect the two to advance higher eternal purposes through judicial decision or legislation and, as a result, bring about the betterment of society.

As it turns out, the sort of change envisioned by my well-meaning friends very rarely occurs. Shocking as it may seem, after almost 20 years of practicing law, I cannot think of a single Christian lawyer I know personally who has, through litigation or other uses of the law, advanced God’s eternal purposes in what I consider a significant way. Not one.

In contrast, what I do see, week in and week out, is a deep commitment to the poor and needy and to Christian organizations. I know many, many Christian lawyers who donate their time to churches, homeless shelters and missions. And their work bears fruit. But they do not often change or advance the law in any material way. They just help people and groups of people — generally one at a time.

It turns out that neither the law nor lawyers really have the sort of power that many of my Christian friends thought — the power to bring about Change with a big C.

The law’s limitation is that it doesn’t have any power over the heart. It has restraining power, but very little of what one might loosely call “changing power.”

When a marriage breaks up and people are left in a million pieces, the law has no ability to do anything to heal the brokenness. It can help sort out bank accounts and visitation rights and such, but it doesn’t speak to the heart.

If a greedy corporate executive steals from his company, the law is useful in helping that company get its money back. The executive is held accountable, maybe even jailed. Yes, the restraining power of justice intervenes, and rightly so, but it has no ability to change that executive’s heart. No power at all.

And so it goes with virtually all the deepest legal problems. The law restrains child abusers; it has no ability to make them love children. It makes sure the person who hits a car or steals a company’s intellectual property pays a fair amount for any damage caused, but it doesn’t even attempt to make that person sincerely sorry. The law rarely concerns itself with deeper issues like repentance. Those words are not in the legal vocabulary.

That’s certainly not to say that holding the corporate executive accountable or recovering a fair amount for trade secret theft is trivial. Not by any means. It needs to be done. But doing so does not effect any broad or lasting societal change of the sort envisioned by my believing friends. And the truth is that more laws, or even better laws, will not bring about that big-C Change either.

In the end, our longing for change, for big change, was and is right. But the only one who brings about the Change we so deeply long for is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can truly heal the brokenhearted. He is in the business of restoring broken marriages. Changing hardened hearts. Mending relationships. Prompting people to repent. He does it all the time.

The Lord does not need, and in fact rarely uses, the power of the law to do His work.

More often than not, He uses humble people: a father’s tender touch, a friend’s phone call, an adoptive parent, a small group, a father-in-law’s word of assurance, a pastor’s sermon, a Sunday school teacher’s consistent dedication. And yes, even a lawyer’s willingness to help the poor and needy. These are His tools, day in, day out.

Jesus also “does” justice much better than the legal system. For instance, His people at New Horizons Youth Ministries help homeless children each night in Seattle. They feed the poor and care for the sick, and at Union Gospel Mission train those in need of employment. All these life-changing touches and transactions occur within blocks of my Seattle law firm, where lawyers are holed up “practicing law.” And there are no billable hours at New Horizons or Union Gospel Mission. Just humble servants of our Lord.

Frankly, a large law firm like mine does not begin to compare — in its ability to impact the world — with His church. A law firm is so limited in what it can do. The church, by contrast, is dynamic and unbelievably radical in its mission. Just think about the promises we make. God will forgive your sins! Heal broken hearts. Mend relationships. Lead and guide you today and forevermore. Give you eternal life. These promises are either amazing, compelling or truly outrageous. There is no middle ground.

Imagine a lawyer saying to a client, “I promise to provide you with a wise and loving counselor for life, a friend who will never leave you or forsake you, who promises you eternal life.” Yet we can and do make such promises in His church. And God delivers.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually like, even “love” my work as a trial lawyer (although it seems more like “tent making” all the time). To me, there is no question that God can and does use Christian lawyers — but any use He might make of us is due not so much to the lawyer part as the Christian part. In fact, the lawyer part is almost incidental to God.

What God seems to want — in my view — is not so much Christian lawyers or doctors or dentists or …. He just wants willing and obedient people. He will use His people and His church to bring about big Change — one life at a time.