A life well lived

For a few hours yesterday afternoon I thought I was going to die.  My whole body ached, my stomach was killing and my head felt like it was being crushed between Mr T's hands.  And so I thought I was going to die (the fact that I had watched Steven Soderburg's film Contagion the night before where people did die of similar symptoms did not help!).

And it made me think about life.  If I was to die, would I have lived like I wanted to?  Would I have lived like God has wanted me to?  Would I have lived well?

And this sort of fits into some stuff I have been thinking about the two Joshuas in the bible.  The first Joshua was a no-holes-bared, strong-arm, courageous, victory-scars on the cheek kind of hero.  He had led a whole nation into a territory full of giants and kings... and he had won.  This Joshua had eyeballed enemy after enemy and he had smashed them all into oblivion.  This Joshua had berated and cajoled his followers into great exploits and mighty victories.  He had never failed to set the example or to be the first out on the pitch.  And so he was a great man.  I imagine he had biceps as big as my thighs and thighs as big as my torso and hair as wild and long as a wild, long-haired maniac.  I imagine he would have been captain of his rugby team, and rapidly promoted in his business, and the recipient of massive Christmas bonuses and often talked about in the dying light of the Israeli evenings.  In so many ways he looked like he had a life well lived.  And yet I think he ultimately flunked it.  This is what it says in Judges 2:8-11


"Joshua, Son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten... after that whole generation had been gathered up to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.  Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals."


Somehow this amazing man Joshua, this incredible, inspirational leader failed to provide any legacy.  The fruit that the Lord bore in his life had gone rotten within a few years of his death.  What a flipping tragedy.

Now I might be wrong but I think the reason for this might be found in the most famous of quotes of Joshua "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"(Joshua 24:15).  I know this comes at the end of a big speech where Joshua is calling all of Israel to stay true to the Lord, but I think that within it lies a hint, a small seed of suggestion that Joshua saw himself as separate from those around him.  I wonder if Joshua was displaying a little hint of individualism - a smidgen of self-focus - when he declared that ultimately he would act like an example to others rather but not so much as an empower-er of them.  Joshua's declaration seems to suggest that his leadership was about him doing what he thought was right and others deciding whether or not they would follow him.

The second Joshua didn't lead like that.  One of the first things the second Joshua is recorded as saying is "come follow me, and I will make you fishers of me" (Mark 1:17).  The second Joshua, Jesus, not only focussed on himself being an example to others but also on helping others become all that his Father had called them to be.  Jesus' whole life was caught up with empowering others, with discipling others, with apprenticing them to him, with calling them out of their sin and into fullness of life by his side.  And Jesus' life was ultimately summed up with that dramatic act of sacrifice on the cross where he died for the benefit of others.  Where Jesus chose to lose the battle and have his reputation smashed so that others could ultimately been redeemed and empowered through the resurrection and pentecost.

As men I think it is so, so easy to live like the first Joshua and think we are doing a great job.  It is so easy to focus on how many people attend our things and speak well of us.  It is so easy to concern ourselves with thinking about how good an example we are setting.  And yet, if we do that, I fear that our lives will bear less fruit than Jesus desires for us.  Instead, a life well lived is one that aligns itself to others and seeks to help them become all that God has called them to be.  It is about intentionally choosing 2 or 3 other guys and making time for them, choosing to speak out words of encouragement to them and to gently challenge them when they are off.  It is about praying for them and grabbing coffee with them and sharing with them whatever God has been teaching you about recently.  And, it is about investing in our children (if we have them).  No one else will be a father to them.  No other man will have so much permission to speak into their lives.  No one else will have such insight into what is so good in them, or understanding of what is self-destructive and bad.  No one else will have such potential to give them a flying start in life, making them ready to grasp hold of all that God has for them.   But that doesn't just happen - we have to choose to make it so.

But if we do this, I am convinced that on that day when we lie on our death bed we will know that we have lived life well.  We may not have the accolades that we might have had and we may not have scars on our cheeks but we will know that other men, and our children, are going on beyond on us.  We will know that we have empowered others and enabled them to become more of who they could be and we will have faithfully passed on the baton with our life.  There can be no better feeling than that.