Living The Good Life

A young man was learning to be a paratrooper. Prior to his first jump, he was given these instructions:

1. Jump when you are told.
2. Count to ten and pull the ripcord.
3. In the unlikely event that your chute doesn’t open pull the emergency ripcord.
4. When you get down, a truck will be there to take you back to the airfield.

The young soldier memorized these instructions and climbed aboard the plane. The plane climbed to ten thousand feet and the paratroopers began to jump. When the young soldier was told to jump, he jumped. He then counted to ten and pulled the ripcord. Nothing happened. His chute failed to open. So he pulled the emergency ripcord. Still nothing happened. No emergency parachute. “Oh great” he thought, “And I suppose the truck won’t be there when I get down either!”

Ever lived through a period of time that went a bit like that? Have you experienced failures and disappointments to the point that you just don’t expect anything to go right for you? There are times when the whole world seems to be against us.

Well, God’s Word tells how to live the good life, not perhaps life as we have become accustomed to in our decadent societies today; the good life that God shows us how to life is so radically different, superior in every way to the best that’s on offer in this sin soaked world in which we live.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:1

Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God. Psalm 1:1 Good News Bible

BLESSED (HAPPY, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice, their plans and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful [and the mockers] gather. Psalm 1 Amplified Bible

Simple advice isn’t it…. Want to be blessed by God? Then avoid “the way” (literally to walk with) of sinners…. The primary thought here is that believers are blessed by God. God is the one who blesses people who “do not walk in the counsel of the wicked,” and who refuse evil advice. It is in meditation on God’s law that such a person finds their delight. It is the sound of God’s voice and through God’s direction that this person finds “the good life”.

Sadly, most of us have a penchant for seeking happiness where it cannot be found, and in things that are incapable of imparting it. Humanity has long deluded itself as to just what “the good life” is.  The Greek philosophers said that the good life was the examined life. Aristotle wrote that the un-examined life wasn’t worth living.

The ancient Epicureans concluded that the good life was a life that maximized pleasure and minimized pain. The existentialists believed that the good life was the self-made, individually chosen life. And if one were to believe the beer commercials, just drinking a particular brand of beer ushers in utopia!

What is the good life? Is it having lots of money? Is it having a powerful job that influences lots of people? Is it being happy? So many people live life as they find it, never reaching their potential, and they go their graves without any knowledge of the Living God, or the full life that He has in store for each of us.

Psalm 1 is not, as some suppose, the picture of the truly “happy person”… it is rather a description of the blessedness of the righteous person, in contrast with the condition of the unrighteous. The righteous person is indeed prosperous and happy; regardless of monetary wealth or even the complete lack of it. Living the life that Psalm 1outlines is without a doubt living “the good life”