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By J. Adam Tyler
Guest Columnist

What is “the good life”? This is an important question. After all, we all have only one shot at this life, and we want it to be as good, as enjoyable, as meaningful as possible. So what does it mean?

Lots of voices compete to tell us what it is. Advertisers spend billions of dollars to convince us that their product – whether it’s a new gizmo, better home, or faster car – can make our life better. It’s election week, and we are very aware that candidates for public office have been working hard to persuade us that their vision of the good life is right and, even more, their opponent’s is wrong or evil. Movies and social media present an image of life that is beyond belief, leaving us wishing for something more.

To the din of voices, I want to add one more, which I think is the most important. To live the good life, we do well to hear the advice of Micah 6:8:

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

There are around 31,000 verses in the Bible, and they cover everything from the nature of God to the proper ways to worship to how to raise crops and protect livestock. The good news that God loves us and, through his Son, has acted to repair the breech in our relationship with him takes up a lot of those verses, and many other verses help us figure out how to be faithful to God, care for others well, and work out our difficulties with life in the best way possible. Yet there are few verses in Scripture that so efficiently convey the way to live the good life as this one in Micah.

First, it reminds us to do justice, which simply means to live in a way that treats people fairly and equitably and maintains good while rejecting evil.

Second, it encourages us to love kindness, or to act towards God and other people with a sense of seeking their good and offer grace and mercy to the people we encounter.

Third, it instructs us to walk humbly with God. Humility is a virtue that many today deem a vice, but the witness of Scripture tells us that humility – centering God and others in our lives instead of ourselves – is both a trait of God and a trait that God values in us. When we stop being so self-interested, there is space in our lives for us to encounter God and walk through life in connection to God and other people.

When we do these three things, according to the Bible, we are living the good life. Let’s do justice. Let’s love kindness. Let’s walk humbly with our God. Let’s live the good life today.

REV. DR. J. ADAM TYLER is the senior pastor for Farmville Baptist Church, and he can be reached by email at pastor@farmvillebaptist.org.