One The Good And Beautiful Life

Sin is always ugly, and genuine virtue is always beautiful. Sin leads to ruin, virtue to greater strength. And this is why everyone, even atheists, love Jesus. Jesus was pure virtue. He lived a good and beautiful life, which he is calling his apprentices to live. A virtuous person is a light to everyone around them. I met such a person a few years ago, and he is still having an impact on me.

In the summer of 2006 I had the privilege of meeting one of my heroes: legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. Coach Wooden still holds many records that may never be broken. He won ten NCAA basketball championships, the last one in 1975. No other coach has had more than four. During one streak his teams won eighty-eight straight games. No other team has won more than forty-two. He coached some of the greatest players ever to play the game (Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). He is thought by many to be not merely the greatest basketball coach of all time but the greatest coach of any sport in any era. To this day his former players call him, often once a week, to tell him they love him, to thank him for how he influenced their lives and to seek his advice in all areas of life.

Though he is revered for his success as a coach, his winning record did not make Coach Wooden who he is. During the afternoon I spent with him, I asked him the secret to his life. He said, “Jim, I made up my mind in 1935 to live by a set of principles, and I never wavered from them. They are based on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Principles like courage and honesty and hard work, character and loyalty, and virtue and honor—these are what constitute a good life.” For three hours I wrote down nearly everything he said. I watched him as he engaged in conversation with my then fourteen-year-old son, Jacob, treating him as if he were the only person in the room. Jacob’s eyes were wide as he stared at John’s memorabilia: baseballs signed by legends such as Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter and Joe Torre, all saying things like, “To Coach Wooden: You are my inspiration.”

John Wooden found the right way to live, and he lived it every day. He fell in love with and remained devoted to Nellie, his wife of fifty-three years, when they were young. On the first day of basketball practice, he spent the first hour teaching his players how to put their socks on properly. Not doing so, John said, would lead to blisters. He was teaching his players an important life principle: Do even the small things well. He told his players to acknowledge the player who passed the ball to them when they scored. The practice of pointing to the player who assisted in scoring started at UCLA. Wooden told his players, “Discipline yourself so others won’t have to.” “Never lie, never cheat, never steal.” “Earn the right to be proud and confident.”

John has lived an amazing life. His love for his beloved wife and for Jesus seemed to fill the room. He smiles infectiously, laughs easily and is genuinely humble. He is glad to be alive, able to see his children and grandchildren, but he told me he is ready to move on to the next life so he can be with Jesus and his beloved Nellie. John has lived a wonderful life, “better than I deserved,” he told me. But the truth is that he has lived the kind of life we are meant to live, based on truth, virtue and integrity, a life leading to true happiness. John Wooden has lived a good and beautiful life.

You may have noticed that John was born in 1910. That was the same year Ben was born. They lived through the same century together, witnessed the depression, two world wars, economic suffering and prosperity, and over a dozen presidents. They lived in the same country, though on different coasts. Neither one started out with a greater or lesser advantage, yet the difference in their lives was stark. What was the difference? Ben lived his life under an illusion, a false narrative about life and happiness, which ruined his life. He lived his final days in fear of death. John arranged his life around truth, around the teachings of Jesus, an accurate narrative about what constitutes a good life. By following this narrative he lived a glorious life, is content and looking forward to a radiant future with Christ. Ben built a life on shifting sand; John built his life on the strong rock of Jesus.

I want to be clear that God did not bless John because he did good deeds. John’s good deeds led to a virtuous life, which is its own reward. God does not mete out blessings and curses based on our behavior alone—if that were so, all “bad” people would suffer and all “good” people would be blessed. But there is a life of joy and peace that only those who follow God can know.

Neither John nor Ben are normal in that both achieved extraordinary success in life. Both were exceptional in their own ways. But you and I are no less exceptional. Each day we make decisions that move us closer to a life of virtue or vice. We face decisions whether to be greedy or generous, self-centered or self-sacrificing, condemning or forgiving, cursing or blessing. While Ben and John were not average, everyday people, their souls are no different than ours. No matter who we are, we must choose the narrative we will practice daily.

John Wooden became a Christian at a young age and built his life around Jesus’ teachings. Jesus’ narrative goes like this: “The good and beautiful life is created by doing the things I commanded, not as laws or rules, but as a new way of life.” Jesus states this narrative at the end of his Sermon on the Mount. Later, we will examine that sermon very carefully, but I want to begin by looking at how Jesus ends his teaching. After giving the most profound sermon the world has ever heard, Jesus says,

All who take Jesus’ words to heart and arrange their lives around them will be like a person who builds a house on a rock, never to be shaken, even in the storms and floods.

In contrast, those who refuse to listen and obey build their house on sand. When the storms of life come, they can be sure that their house will collapse. What words is Jesus referring to when he says “hears these words and acts on them”? The Sermon on the Mount. He is talking about his command not to be ruled by anger or lust or deception. Not retaliating or worrying, and not judging people. Strangely, many Christians simply ignore these teachings, seeing them as too hard or perhaps not necessary for the ordinary person.

This book is built around the Sermon on the Mount. The aim is to help Christians understand and implement the teachings of Jesus about things like anger, lust, lying, worrying, pride and judging others. What Jesus teaches about these things is simply the truth. Living according to his teachings leads to a good life, a life that can withstand the storms and trials we all face. Disobeying his teachings leads to a life of ruin. Jesus is not making life more difficult but is revealing that the way to the good and beautiful life is to obey his teachings. There is no other way. Either our lives conform to his teachings, or we fail to live a good and beautiful life.

Years ago, Gordon Livingston was a young lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division, trying to orient himself during a field exercise at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He writes, “As I stood studying a map, my platoon sergeant, a veteran, approached. ‘You figure out where we are, lieutenant?’ he asked. ‘Well, the map says there should be a hill over there, but I don’t see it,’ I replied. ‘Sir,” he said, ‘if the map don’t agree with the ground, then the map is wrong.’ Even at the time, I knew I had just heard a profound truth.”

Maps attempt to tell us the way things actually are. The closer a map comes to matching reality, the better it is. The same is true with our narratives. Some narratives are simply wrong. Other narratives, particularly those of Jesus, are exceedingly accurate—perfect even. We can easily tell the accuracy of the map by comparing it to the terrain it depicts. Lieutenant Gordon learned a great truth: if the map does not agree with the ground, the map is wrong. The ground is never wrong.

Narratives, too, try to guide us, to orient us, to tell us which way to turn. But if the narrative does not agree with actual life, the narrative is wrong. The false narrative Ben lived by proved inaccurate. It told him, “This is the way to the good life,” but he ended up with a ruined life. The problem, then, is not with life but with the narrative. Jesus’ narrative, in contrast, matches reality. No one has ever followed his teachings and been disappointed. No one has ever put his teachings into practice and found them false. His instructions perfectly coincide with reality. We will not find the good life any other way than by obeying Jesus. We must conform to his way.

One dark and stormy evening a ship with a proud captain was heading directly into an oncoming ship. The other ship signaled, “Turn around,” but the proud captain refused. He signaled the other ship to get out of his way; after all, he was a famous captain piloting an important ship. The other ship signaled again, “Turn around—now!” Again, the captain refused, signaling, “No, you must turn. This ship is the SS Poseidon, and I am Captain Franklin Moran!” Finally the other “ship” signaled: “Turn now—this is the lighthouse, and you are about to hit the rocks.” Certainly we are free to live our own way. So is a captain free to deny the light from the lighthouse and do what he wants. He is not free, however, from the rocks. Reality is what we smack into when we are wrong.

We should read the Sermon on the Mount this way. Jesus is not demanding we live his way in order to get his blessing or get into heaven when we die; he is simply telling the truth about reality. He warns against lust, not because he is a prude but because he knows it destroys human lives when unchecked. He tells us not to worry, not because it will give us ulcers but because people who live with him in the kingdom of God need not worry; it is a waste of time. Lust and worry, judgment and anger, retaliation and pride are never good or beautiful, and never lead to freedom. In fact, they are a flight from freedom.

We cannot find happiness or joy apart from a life of obedience to the teachings of Jesus. C. S. Lewis wrote, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” God is not being stingy and withholding joy apart from our obedience; there simply is no joy apart from a life with and for God. “God, please give me happiness and peace,” we plead, “but let me also live my life as I please.” And God answers, “I cannot give you that. You are asking for something that does not exist.”

Spiritual formation and discipleship cause many people to think about the high cost involved in developing a deeper life with God. Gone will be a life of pleasure, a life filled with laughter and fun. Entertainment, watching movies, eating delicious food, surfing the Net and playing games with friends will all have to be taken out of our lives. This is far from the truth. Those who follow Jesus do not have to live austere, sad and sour lives. In fact, the opposite is true. Christ-followers experience the highest form of pleasure, laugh with depth and enjoy all of the goodness life has to offer. Kingdom-dwellers are simply more discriminate about how they seek entertainment and pleasure. They trust in a good and beautiful God who has come not to rob them of joy but to bring them real and lasting joy, the kind found when moderation and boundaries are applied.

The idea that following Jesus’ teaching will lead to a boring life is one of the most effective narratives employed by the enemy of our souls. Satan and his minions know all too well that real joy is found only in obeying Jesus’ commands. But with a twist here and there, and the help of well-meaning but misguided religious folk, the Christian life can be portrayed as a holy bummer. The devil wants people to fear the high cost of discipleship. But in reality, the cost of nondiscipleship is much higher. Dallas Willard explains:

The question is not, What will I have to give up to follow Jesus? but rather, What will I never get to experience if I choose not to follow Jesus? The answer is clear: we will forfeit the chance to live a good and beautiful life.

Before the summer ended, during one of our many conversations, I ended up telling Ben that the only way to live was to follow Jesus. Ben did not offer much resistance to my statement. Jesus, he said, was brilliant. But he said it was too late for him; he had messed up his life and at the age of seventy-five was beyond redemption. I explained that redemption was God’s favorite activity, regardless of age. During the rest of the summer we met each day, and every session became more and more joyful. We read the Gospels together and talked about mercy and forgiveness and the opportunity to change. By the end of the summer, when it was time for me to leave, Ben offered me a very special gift, a rare copy of an old book he knew I loved. Then he told me that he had decided to follow Jesus, had asked for forgiveness and somehow, in a strange way, felt that God had forgiven him. He showed me a letter he had written to his daughter, asking for her forgiveness. The book was a wonderful gift, but the change I saw in his life over the course of a summer was the best gift of all.

The last time I heard about Ben came when his daughter wrote to me, telling me that Ben had died at age eighty-eight. She said they had reconciled, and Ben had come to a saving faith. She said he spent his last years a changed man. Apparently Ben told her about our summer sessions and had asked her to pass on his gratitude. Ben did not live a radiant life, at least for the first seventy-five years. But he was changed and experienced a decade of devotion to God. According to his daughter, Ben died a radiant death.

When I think about Ben I think about how change is not only possible but mandatory. Every day we must begin anew. Though the past is written in stone and cannot be changed, the future is like wet cement, pliable, smooth and ready to be affected by what we do. No one is past redemption. All of us have the chance, no matter what we have done or where we have been, to change our minds, hearts and behavior, and to follow the wisest and most loving teacher who ever walked this earth. Each day, Jesus says to each of us, “Come, follow me.” If we say yes, we can be sure that a good and beautiful day awaits us. And when we string those days together into months, years and decades, we will have lived a good and beautiful life. And that life is destined to echo a benediction of love for all of eternity to hear.

I would like you to write a letter to God that begins with “Dear God, the life I want most for myself is . . .” The rest of the letter will complete this opening statement (or prayer). You may want to acknowledge the mistakes you have made, but try to describe, in the rest of your letter, what a “good and beautiful life” would look like for you. Will it involve a major life change? Will it demand a new set of friends? Will it involve changing old narratives and habits? Feel free to dream big. Let God in on your greatest hopes.

Be sure to keep this letter in a safe place. You will likely want to read it at least once a year to be reminded of the vision you and God have for your life. Let it be a guide and an inspiration. If you feel comfortable, you may share it with someone you trust. If you are working through this book with a group of people, you may want to share your letter with them, but you are not required to do so. My experience has been that this is a great encouragement to everyone in the group.

Whether you are going through this material alone or with others, the following questions will help as reflect on your experience. Record your answers in your journal. If you are meeting with a group, bring your journal to remind you of your insights as you share your experiences with others.