22 Jul Community Produces Life

I recently stumbled across a study Harvard did on success and happiness. This study began in 1938 when the Harvard Study of Adult Development started tracking the lives of 724 men for 79 years (talk about commitment)!

The men in this study were part of two different groups (or classes). One group consisted of boys from Boston’s poorest neighborhoods, while the other were sophomores at Harvard.

For decades, researchers inquired about their health, work, and their lives.

After studying the lives of these men, they noticed an interesting pattern. Any flourishing they observed had nothing to do with wealth, education, social class, or IQ.

The fourth director of the study, Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said something that struck me as nothing short of profound:

“When we gathered together everything we knew about them at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old, it was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”

People satisfied in relationships were healthiest.

After seeing this study, I was reminded of Proverbs 16:25, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but that way leads only unto death.”

We live in a world that promises us happiness if we will just work a little harder, get that extra degree, or fight for that next promotion. In the name of success, we often find ourselves sacrificing the very thing that produces true life in all of us: our relationship with God and each other.

Let that not be the case with us. By God’s grace, may we be a people who pursue a connection with our Heavenly Father and with one another.

May we experience the riches He has to offer us through a community centered on the love of Jesus.

With this in mind, I’d like to take a moment to invite all of our men to join us for our upcoming men’s breakfasts on August 2, August 9, and August 16.

It will be a time of meaningful teaching, powerful fellowship, and who knows…it just might add years to your life!