"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.

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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.