This is #2 in a series of Lent devotions around the book, The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith.

Why do people want a million dollars? "Come on," you say, "who doesn't want a million dollars?"

Hit that pause button! We know getting a million dollars is not what life is all about. When it becomes an obsession, a life-focus, we're in trouble. Life is consumed rather than lived.

And yet, we secretly hold onto the notion of getting that big easy paycheck one day. Isn't that what the "Lottery" exploits in us? I've known myself to let out a quiet little whine, like a hair that pops out of place. "Well, still I'd like to have everything I want. And, of course God, I would use it well." I'm such a deal-spinner!

Simply, we are fooling ourselves. We will always want something we don't have.

Consider the story of the rich, young ruler who had it all and then some! After a conversation with Jesus, he went away very sad.

Hey wait a minute! Shouldn't we feel really good after a talk with Jesus? Wow. Sometimes what Jesus actually says so challenges what I want. Sometimes a good talk with Jesus causes great volcanic eruptions inside, and we're yelling a silent scream, "No!!!" 

I've been working for the past few weeks on a new design for Joomla!. I had not really delved into how to create a "beyond-the-standard" look of a module, with expanding images. So, let me explain how to do it for all of my fellow Noobs.

First, there is some good documentation on the Joomla site - access "Tutorial: Using Class Suffixes in Joomla 1.5." This tutorial will teach you how to add a suffix in the administrator backend of your site > Extensions Menu > Modules > Choose a Module > Parameters on right of module set-up.

Go, read that, really! 

Second up is how to really create the graphic you'll need.

A mid-week call to reflect. What has a grip on your life's energy?

Romans 1:21-23 (NIV) ²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

A quote from the book:

Idolatry: We must have a god.
"We would like a god who would do a lot of good for us and ask very little in return. The solution: create an idol ... Idols do not have to be little images; they can be anything we invest our lives in, in order to gain pleasure, happiness and a false sense of purpose. . . . Here is the key: the idol serves us by giving us our desires, and we serve it by sacrificing our life energy to it."

Chapter 1.

So, what do you think about this quote?

"The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering ... but in the development of the soul." Alexander Solzhenitsyn as quoted in The Good and Beautiful Life

Our author meets Ben, a person who spent his life's ambition in the  opposite direction: absolutely hell bent on prospering at all costs. And it has cost him quite a deal: wives, children, friendships, and a harshness inside. He made his first million by the age of 25 years old.

That's not bad, I'm thinking. Wouldn't you like to make a million dollars in a few years time? Isn't that really our dream? I know we're all saints, but consider for a moment. Wouldn't you really like to get a million dollars? TV shows have been written around what you would give up for a million dollars.

Isn't that the truth? You would have to give up something to make that million dollars? I know the myth out there. You could go ahead and live the way you're living. You could just tweak a few moments in life to get that  million. You could pray for money and it would become attracted to you somehow? You could still place "nice guy" and do it.

"Recently there was a poll taken that asked this simple question: 'What did your parents want more for you - success, wealth, to be a good person, or happiness? Eighty-five percent said happiness."
--in The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ by James Bryon Smith

I'm intrigued. I think my parents would also have chosen happiness. But was their definition of happiness correct?

The book's premise is that we live our lives striving for happiness in the wrong way. Amen, brother.

What if we lived out of Jesus' own narrative, replacing our narrative with Jesus' narrative? In other words, we've built up a system of beliefs, and life experienced deductions or philosophies we live out of - making up a circle of ideas we stick within. But what if we replaced this circle with a new circle - namely, with the circle of ideas and philosophies Jesus lived within?

We believe happiness is bought. Oh yeah, we say, "Money can't buy happiness." But we still act as if it does. Marketers know our reality, and they create rich, sexy, and appealing ads. We're really more savvy than to fall for that line, right? Then how come it reaches us at our base level and we go out to buy it??

We need a check-in between what we say and what we do. But really, we need a circle swap inside! The story we live out of needs to match up with a real story of life. Voila, happiness!

What did Jesus say happiness is? Jot down some notes for yourself and get ready to "do some of this course together"over the next few weeks. I'll write the next segment of this column, "The Good and Beautiful Life," on Fridays.

* If you want to be a part of this Lenten book group, read the blog and comments, or receive this via email, you will have to register on this site to be included. Feel free to contact me.

(Create an account, check your email, and once you verify your registration, Log-in. You will see a new menu option, "The Journal.")

Book Info: This is apparently book #2 in a course meant to be used in a group. The first book is The Good and Beautiful God and the third book is The Good and Beautiful Community.  If you want to pick up your own copy of the book we're discussing, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ, Amazon sells both a Kindle version and a regular version.

For years I've struggled with "what makes a good sermon?"

I'll tell you what: There are plenty of opinions out there about what makes a good sermon. I know some of us pastors feel "good" if when people are walking out of the sanctuary, they feel warmed up and generous with thank-yous. And perhaps that could be a good sermon. Perhaps that's an indication of whether you were on target with this particular audience.

But I worry, probably like you do as well. If sermons are "good" by the "at the door" kudos you feel, then what keeps it from just being a 'crowd pleaser' rather than a movement of God's?

This weekend, snow permitting (LOL), I'll be asking the congregation to reinvigorate their marriages. In order to get the point across, I wrote a drama for our contemporary service, "Where's Jesus?" You can  download it here, and use with permission under creative commons license for non-commercial use (i.e. you're not gaining profit with it's use).

We'll use this earlier in the service, just before the Offering time, ending with a band song, "I Will Be Here" by Stephen Curtis Chapman and leading into an invitation to ask Jesus to become a powerful part of your marriage or other relationships right now - again.

License Information:

Where's Jesus? by Sandy Boone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at sandyboone.com.

A local church is challenging it's congregation to "fast from technology" for 24 hours.

But God has been doing something very interesting in the Washington, D.C. area this past week. Snow and then, more snow.

I just put my boots on, stepped outside with the dog in the very still night. There's a lamp post that looks just like the lamp post in C.S. Lewis' story, The Lion,The Witch and the Wardrobe. I felt like I stepped into another world.

Maybe we need our weeks punctuated with snow. (And I'm a sun lizard personally.) I can feel the advantage of muffled sounds and schedules. I think my soul thirsts for more of it. How about you?

Usually all I hear when I step outside is traffic. Tonight is magical. The fairly faint whisper of snow. The blanket of brightness. Silence.

What a treat God. Thanks! Bring it on tonight Lord ... we need some silence.

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Turning off the laptop . . .