Lessons:

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #1
The Good and Beautiful Life

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #2
The Gospel You May Not Have Heard

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #3
The Grand Invitation

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #4
Anger

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #5
Lust   

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #6
Honesty

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #7
Bless Those Who Curse You

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #8
Learning to Live Without Vainglory

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #9
Learning to Live Without Avarice

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #10
Learning to Live Without Worry

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #11
Learning to Live Without Judging

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #12
Living in the Kingdom

One summer I worked as an intern chaplain at a retirement center. It was a pretty easy job. The residents were all in good enough health not to need constant care. They seemed to enjoy living together, kind of like a college dorm experience for people with gray hair, wrinkles and a lot of wisdom. I saw smiling faces everywhere I went. In our daily chapel a woman named Gladys played a hymn, I gave a short devotion, and we ended with one more hymn and a benediction. The rest of the day the residents spent thinking about their children and grandchildren, having tea or shooting pool. It was a pretty nice job. Sipping tea with grandmothers and shooting pool with grandfathers was not a bad way to spend a summer.

Mostly I mingled during social times, but occasionally someone would request a visit from me. One day my supervisor handed me a slip that said, “Ben Jacobs, Room 116, requests a visit from a chaplain.” She looked at me and said, “Good luck with this one, Jim.” Her tone told me that she knew I was up for a difficult afternoon. What could be tough about this? I asked myself as I made my way to Ben’s room. I knocked on the door, and a deep voice bellowed, “Come in, young man.” Ben sat in his rocker, with a shawl around his legs, wearing a blue cardigan and a button-down shirt. He had gray hair, a well-trimmed beard and very severe features: large, deeply set eyes and a very long, thin nose. He looked serious and important, and like one who would not be crossed.

“Good afternoon, Ben,” I said, reaching out my hand to shake his.

“Sit down, son,” he said, matter-of-factly, without shaking my hand.

For the next half an hour we talked about philosophy and world religions. I was not sure if he wanted to test me to see if I was intelligent and well read or if he just wanted to impress me. He certainly did impress me. He knew a great deal about very sophisticated matters in religion and philosophy. We engaged in a debate over which philosopher was the best. I suspected, however, that he did not want to debate philosophy, but I was not sure what he really wanted. After a while he said, “Well, you must have much to do. I will let you go now. Good day.”

This time he did shake my hand, and as I left the room he said, “Would you please come back tomorrow?”

For the next six days I went to room 116 and talked with Ben, and each day he opened up a little more, sharing more about his life in bits and pieces. Then, on the seventh visit I discovered Ben’s main intention. He wanted someone to confess to. Not any one sin; Ben wanted to confess to having lived a bad life. Surprisingly, his life, according to many, was really not so bad. Some might even say he lived well.

“I was born in 1910. I made my first million by 1935. I was twenty-five years old. By the age of forty-five I was the richest man in my state. Politicians wanted to be my friend. I lied, cheated and stole from whomever I could. My motto was simple: take all you can from whoever you can. I amassed wealth, and everyone was impressed with me. I had a lot of power in those days. I had two thousand employees, and all of them looked up to me or were afraid of me. Money was really all I cared about. I had three wives, all who left me either because of neglect or because they caught me in one of my many affairs. I have one daughter, who is now in her forties, but she refuses to speak to me.”

Ben paused to look at me, to see if I was judging him. I wasn’t. I was somewhat stunned. He looked so grandfatherly in his cardigan sweater; he looked nothing like the kind of person who could have lived such an ambitious, selfish, even sinful life. He went on, “I suppose you could say that I ruined my life, because today, I have nothing really. Oh, I still have a lot of money. I still have more money than I could ever spend. But that brings me no joy. I sit here each day, waiting to die. I have nothing but bad memories. I cared about no one in my life, and now no one cares about me. You, young man, are all I have.”

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ, The Apprentice Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009), 15–16.

Check out our Bible Study on The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith.

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