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This Is the Main Event: Discovering the Life You Long for in the Life You Have
A simple mantra to change discover how to encounter God in your everyday, and practice extraordinary presence in an ordinary life.
What if the life we long for isn’t elsewhere but rather right here, waiting to be discovered?
Joshua Luke Smith believes the greatest lie facing our generation is that the life we long for lies beyond the life that we have. We so easily learn to disdain the inconveniences, interruptions, and messy mundane that infuses our everyday. But the real transformation happens when we look at our life as it is and dare to This is the main event.
With devotional depth and prophetic wisdom, and interspersed with the author's original poetry and blessings, This Is the Main Event is your invitation to awaken to the sacred in your ordinary life. As Joshua claims, the extraordinary life is simply the one in which we practice presence—to ourselves, to others, to God. Every moment becomes meaningful when you recognize the God who meets you in it—a holy encounter accessed in the everyday.
Whether you’re packing lunches, paying bills, headed to the office or the hospital or a recovery meeting, God comes to you in the shape of your actual life. Joshua Luke Smith writes from the raw materials of his own ordinary life—toddler tuck-ins, recovery meetings, flat tires a mile from home—to speak to yours.
For anyone wearied by the workaday grind, this is a book to help you receive the greatest gift you already have and to practice your own aliveness in your actual life.
What if the life we long for isn’t elsewhere but rather right here, waiting to be discovered?
Joshua Luke Smith believes the greatest lie facing our generation is that the life we long for lies beyond the life that we have. We so easily learn to disdain the inconveniences, interruptions, and messy mundane that infuses our everyday. But the real transformation happens when we look at our life as it is and dare to This is the main event.
With devotional depth and prophetic wisdom, and interspersed with the author's original poetry and blessings, This Is the Main Event is your invitation to awaken to the sacred in your ordinary life. As Joshua claims, the extraordinary life is simply the one in which we practice presence—to ourselves, to others, to God. Every moment becomes meaningful when you recognize the God who meets you in it—a holy encounter accessed in the everyday.
Whether you’re packing lunches, paying bills, headed to the office or the hospital or a recovery meeting, God comes to you in the shape of your actual life. Joshua Luke Smith writes from the raw materials of his own ordinary life—toddler tuck-ins, recovery meetings, flat tires a mile from home—to speak to yours.
For anyone wearied by the workaday grind, this is a book to help you receive the greatest gift you already have and to practice your own aliveness in your actual life.
- GenresNonfictionFaith
282 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 28, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 26, 2026
This is truly one, if not the, most beautiful books I’ve read this year. Joshua is a truly artist and poet, and the humility and beauty he brings up to the surface in this book is breathtaking. If you’re looking for a book with a 3 step system for you to finally be content with your life I may suggest you look elsewhere, although I do believe Joshua makes a very compelling case for the ordinary life in 3 parts.
As I read I started keeping a photograph as myself from when I was 3, because I found that much of this book was addressing her the inner child we all have somewhere beneath us. And it felt nourishing to her. All to say, I highly recommend and hope you give this a read.
As I read I started keeping a photograph as myself from when I was 3, because I found that much of this book was addressing her the inner child we all have somewhere beneath us. And it felt nourishing to her. All to say, I highly recommend and hope you give this a read.
August 14, 2026
A poetic, earthy and hope-filled invitation to find the life we long for in the life we already have.
Joshua Luke Smith beautifully writes about embracing the life we have through:
“lamentation: you are allowed to name your pain.
consecration: you are called to let grace change you.
adoration: you are invited to live in wonder of God’s daily presence.”
Joshua Luke Smith beautifully writes about embracing the life we have through:
“lamentation: you are allowed to name your pain.
consecration: you are called to let grace change you.
adoration: you are invited to live in wonder of God’s daily presence.”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews