Good and Beautiful

I have never met a person whose goal was to ruin his or her life. We all want to be happy, and we want it all of the time.' So begins James Bryan Smith in The Good and Beautiful Life. The problem is, he tells, that people have bought into false notions of happiness and success. These self-centered decisions lead further into the vices that cause ruin: anger, lust, lying, worry, and judging. Eventually people find themselves living a beautifully packaged life of self-destruction. Following the Sermon on the Mount, this follow-up to The Good and Beautiful God is a guide to look behind these character flaws and to replace false beliefs with Jesus' narratives about life in the kingdom of God.

The Christian faith is not only about belief and practices, it is also about the kind of people that we become. Yet some of the biggest barriers to our transformation come from our toxic self-narratives. These narratives shape the way we see ourselves and the way we interact in the world. God designed us with a deep longing in our souls to be wanted, loved, alive, and connected to God. Healing our souls requires more than knowing what God thinks about us. Our healing comes not through reason alone, but through revelation. "The best practice I have seen in Christian spiritual formation" was Dallas Willard's endorsement of the Good and Beautiful series a decade ago. Now this fourth book in the series, The Good and Beautiful You, addresses the self-narratives that hinder spiritual growth and the desires of the soul that only God can satisfy. James Bryan Smith reminds us how Scripture reveals the beauty and goodness of our own souls and how we long for healing that only God can provide. Complete with spiritual practices that help us live into that reality, The Good and Beautiful You will serve as a welcome companion on your journey to discover who you truly are in Christ.

James Bryan Smith helps us know how to live in relationship with others as apprentices of Jesus. "Apprentices of Jesus are not part-time do-gooders," he writes. "They live in continuous contact with the kingdom of God, and are constantly men and women in whom Christ dwells. They do not sometimes tell the truth, sometimes live sacrificially or sometimes forgive. There are myriad opportunities for us to impact the world in which we live." Yet many times we've gotten it wrong, tending to emphasize personal faith over social justice or vice versa. In these pages Jim Smith shows us how to bring spiritual formation and community engagement together, and then once again offers spiritual practices that root new, true narratives about God and the world in our souls. His insight and humility as a fellow learner with us will lead us to live in authentic ways as a good and beautiful community of Christ-followers, shining the light of the Spirit into every relationship.

All Christians have ideas they tell themselves about God and how he works in their lives. Some are true, but many are false. James Bryan Smith believes those thoughts determine not only the identity of Christians, but also how they live. In fact, Smith declares, the most important thing about a person is what they think about God. The path to spiritual transformation begins here.