The Best Life?
Blog post by Matt McCoy
Listen to this blog read by Matt:
4 minute read
There are several different ways to ask the same BIG fundamental question:
How do we live our best possible life?
What’s the secret to happiness?
How do I live my best life now?
What makes for a truly great community?
How can I find contentment in my life?
How can I draw closer to my family and friends?
All of these similar, yet different, questions have a simple, yet hard, answer: We follow Jesus and walk in the direction he’s walking in. {1}
Micah 6:8 sums it up very nicely (The Message):
But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what GOD is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.
OK, so far so good, but how do we actually do this?
Well, there are two movements to pay attention to here, the first one we’ve explored at Spring Church in the recent past, and the second one is going to be our focus for this next season in the church calendar (most often called “ordinary time,” but we call it the “growing season” because it’s easier for people to understand).
Sometimes God sends people to us, and we have something to receive from them.
At Spring Church we’ve explored how God sends people to us to show us how to live, and how sometimes those people are quite unexpected. One time, when God wanted to show the people of Bethlehem how to live, he sent a poor immigrant widow to them (Ruth).
Another time, when God wanted to announce the long-awaited birth of his son, he used a foreign religion to tell foreign people to go tell his worship leaders (Wise Men).
In order to live our best possible life, we need to be willing to listen to the overlooked and the unexpected.
Sometimes God sends us to people, and we have something to give them.
As we look at the stories of Jesus, we notice time and again how he’s friendly towards the most unexpected people. He not only has a conversation with a Roman Centurion, but he heals his servant AND says the most extraordinary things about him (Matthew 8). He not only goes into Samaria, he sends his disciples to buy food AND spends time with a woman of questionable character (John 4). And then he invites his disciples, both the historical ones in these stories AND those of us who follow Jesus today, to go and do the same thing. In order to live our best possible life, we need to be willing to share this life Jesus has given us with unexpected people.
My life is saturated with other voices telling me to do other things in order to live my best possible life. In particular, the Pacific Northwest culture peddles its own cultural religion everywhere I look: “If it feels good to me and for me, it must be good.” But following Jesus involves friendship, actually giving and receiving, with unexpected people.
This brings us to our Big Idea for the Growing Season:
Jesus’ friendships with unexpected people transforms how we love each other.
From now until November, every time we gather we’ll be looking at a different story of how Jesus makes friends with unexpected people and how that friendship was transformational for them. And then we’ll get to explore how Jesus invites us to do the same things, and experience that sort of friendship with the unexpected people around us.
Every week we’ll look at a different story, and see how these stories help invite us to live our best possible life by walking in the direction Jesus is walking in.
But there’s one other element we’ve added to this Big Idea. We’re going to have different people, bringing their own unique perspectives and life experiences, into the leadership of our time together. Every Sunday will be led by somebody different so that we can enter the same Big Idea from a different perspective every time.
If living our best possible life involves friendship with unexpected people, how do we do this? I’m so excited to discover with you, from a variety of different people at Spring Church, how Jesus invites us to be transformed in our loves through friendship with unexpected people.
FOOTNOTES
1 - This is the part of the blog where I usually cite references. But for this statement? Books too many to list have been written since the invention of writing on this topic.
Corresponding Videos
