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This is the Main Event: Discovering the Life You Long for in the Life You Have
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 depth, wisdom and storytelling, 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 recognise 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, a hospital or a recovery meeting, this is a book to help you receive the greatest gift you already have and to practice your own aliveness in your actual life.
Ebury The Home Of Christian Living. Drawing on the deep roots of Christianity to cultivate curious minds and inspire faith-informed growth.
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 depth, wisdom and storytelling, 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 recognise 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, a hospital or a recovery meeting, this is a book to help you receive the greatest gift you already have and to practice your own aliveness in your actual life.
Ebury The Home Of Christian Living. Drawing on the deep roots of Christianity to cultivate curious minds and inspire faith-informed growth.
269 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 30, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 30, 2026
What a way to herald in my 200th Goodreads book.
This book is a warm embrace; love pours out of the pages into your pores. You can hear Joshua's voice, the words he has paid for in suffering and hardship, in careful craft and many prayers. This book is also an encouraging tap on the bum—keep going, look around you, look up.
Joshua Luke Smith frames his big idea 'to discover the life you long for in the life you have' with three central movements: Lamentation, Consecration, Adoration and within these three movements he writes.
The words are so beautiful, they evoke such emotion. They make you feel. I love the last page of the book, the about the Author one that is so easily overlooked where it says that Joshua 'loves helping people find language for their lives.' For me that perfectly puts what it is to write, to put ideas on a page in beautiful ways. It is to help people find a language for their lives that remains unexpressed within them. That Eureka moment where something I have thought and felt has been given words and validated!
I had so many of those moments throughout this book. I have drenched the book with notes and highlights, scrawlings and underlinings. There are so many places my mind went throughout.
It was an utter joy to read! A delight! It is a book I'm sure I will re-visit many times. It is perfectly imperfect—there are certain exegetical conclusions I disagree with, phrases a little too mystical by me and yet I love that! It challenges me, it makes me question why.
Books like this foster books from others as they are inspired and affirmed. What a beautiful legacy to leave.
Some special words I loved either written by the author or quoted were:
My paraphrase 'grace makes broken things repairable.'
'God is present in the inconveniences and contradictions; and more often than not, he comes to us dressed in them.'
'A life without limits only leads is to miss out on the one we're actually living.'
'Its better to live naked on truth than clothed in fantasy.'—Brennan Manning
'Lamentation is the blessing we don't want but we all need.'
'Either our suffering disproves that there is a God who is with us, or it magnifies our need for it all to be true.'
'Pain that is not transformed gets transmitted'
'Today I have done nothing, but much has been done within me.'
'God comes to you disguised as your life.' -Paula D'arcy
'A consecrated life is a transformed, renewed and recreated life.'
'Routine is disguised as ritual'
'A consecrated life is a captivated life, a life that beholds rather than consumes, that pays attention, makes eye contact, and offers the ministry of presence as the most valuable offering. Perhaps the opposite of a consecrated life is a distracted one, busy with many things, rushing around opening and closing cupboard doors, working to the bone, too impatient and frustrated to see that God sits on the sofa at rest in the home.'
'I am not a tool in the belt of a workman but a picture in the wallet of my Father.'
'May we stay a little longer, listen a little deeper and sink even further into the wonderful mystery of our life.'
'The good news is you came a long way. The bad news is, you went the wrong way.'- J. Cole paraphrase
'It will cost you who you don't want to be.'
'The question seems to be less of "if" we are broken and more of "how" we are broken—the people I want to be like most have a limp. Like Jacob, they've found something worth fighting for and embody a brokeness that cannot be bandaged, but like bread that is blessed, broken, and shared their confession of continuing and their dependency upon grace fill and inspire me.'
'He [Jesus] knew the only way to live an abundant life was by giving it away—to hand it over piece by piece: the minutes, the talents, the attention, the love. To let the fields of your life be tilled by the needs of others. To hold your life open.'
'That is the great aim of the spiritual life, to retain our appetite.'
'All is grace.'
'We are free when we forget ourselves.'
'How you do anything is how you do everything.'
'Be encouraged. You might already be a saint. Raise your hands when you feel the Spirit move, even if you're the only one. Compliment a strangers outfit. Linger in conversations. Follow your curiosity and ask too many questions. Don't apologize for your passion; your life doesn't need a disclaimer. Love on the edge of tears. Read poetry aloud in the park and pray your grace loudly in public. Fall on your knees in worship when your children ask you to play. Go for the hug instead of the handshake. Pop the champagne ok a Tuesday; you'll find something to celebrate when you raise your glass. Your life is a defense against despair, an unlikely ordinary apologetic; you are the ladder upon which angels climb down to the roadside from heaven. And in all of this, let your living become and act of adoration—the small unpolished gesture that lifts your eyes from yourself and return your heart to the One who has always afored you first.'
'Lets live our whole life with our soul full of wonder.'
'So, we lament what is lost, we consecrate what we have, and we adore the One who takes it all—the blurriness and the brilliance, the interruptions and the invitations—and makes it into the main event. This life, your life, my life: the world to which we belong, the life we have always longed for, hidden in the life we have.'
This book is a warm embrace; love pours out of the pages into your pores. You can hear Joshua's voice, the words he has paid for in suffering and hardship, in careful craft and many prayers. This book is also an encouraging tap on the bum—keep going, look around you, look up.
Joshua Luke Smith frames his big idea 'to discover the life you long for in the life you have' with three central movements: Lamentation, Consecration, Adoration and within these three movements he writes.
The words are so beautiful, they evoke such emotion. They make you feel. I love the last page of the book, the about the Author one that is so easily overlooked where it says that Joshua 'loves helping people find language for their lives.' For me that perfectly puts what it is to write, to put ideas on a page in beautiful ways. It is to help people find a language for their lives that remains unexpressed within them. That Eureka moment where something I have thought and felt has been given words and validated!
I had so many of those moments throughout this book. I have drenched the book with notes and highlights, scrawlings and underlinings. There are so many places my mind went throughout.
It was an utter joy to read! A delight! It is a book I'm sure I will re-visit many times. It is perfectly imperfect—there are certain exegetical conclusions I disagree with, phrases a little too mystical by me and yet I love that! It challenges me, it makes me question why.
Books like this foster books from others as they are inspired and affirmed. What a beautiful legacy to leave.
Some special words I loved either written by the author or quoted were:
My paraphrase 'grace makes broken things repairable.'
'God is present in the inconveniences and contradictions; and more often than not, he comes to us dressed in them.'
'A life without limits only leads is to miss out on the one we're actually living.'
'Its better to live naked on truth than clothed in fantasy.'—Brennan Manning
'Lamentation is the blessing we don't want but we all need.'
'Either our suffering disproves that there is a God who is with us, or it magnifies our need for it all to be true.'
'Pain that is not transformed gets transmitted'
'Today I have done nothing, but much has been done within me.'
'God comes to you disguised as your life.' -Paula D'arcy
'A consecrated life is a transformed, renewed and recreated life.'
'Routine is disguised as ritual'
'A consecrated life is a captivated life, a life that beholds rather than consumes, that pays attention, makes eye contact, and offers the ministry of presence as the most valuable offering. Perhaps the opposite of a consecrated life is a distracted one, busy with many things, rushing around opening and closing cupboard doors, working to the bone, too impatient and frustrated to see that God sits on the sofa at rest in the home.'
'I am not a tool in the belt of a workman but a picture in the wallet of my Father.'
'May we stay a little longer, listen a little deeper and sink even further into the wonderful mystery of our life.'
'The good news is you came a long way. The bad news is, you went the wrong way.'- J. Cole paraphrase
'It will cost you who you don't want to be.'
'The question seems to be less of "if" we are broken and more of "how" we are broken—the people I want to be like most have a limp. Like Jacob, they've found something worth fighting for and embody a brokeness that cannot be bandaged, but like bread that is blessed, broken, and shared their confession of continuing and their dependency upon grace fill and inspire me.'
'He [Jesus] knew the only way to live an abundant life was by giving it away—to hand it over piece by piece: the minutes, the talents, the attention, the love. To let the fields of your life be tilled by the needs of others. To hold your life open.'
'That is the great aim of the spiritual life, to retain our appetite.'
'All is grace.'
'We are free when we forget ourselves.'
'How you do anything is how you do everything.'
'Be encouraged. You might already be a saint. Raise your hands when you feel the Spirit move, even if you're the only one. Compliment a strangers outfit. Linger in conversations. Follow your curiosity and ask too many questions. Don't apologize for your passion; your life doesn't need a disclaimer. Love on the edge of tears. Read poetry aloud in the park and pray your grace loudly in public. Fall on your knees in worship when your children ask you to play. Go for the hug instead of the handshake. Pop the champagne ok a Tuesday; you'll find something to celebrate when you raise your glass. Your life is a defense against despair, an unlikely ordinary apologetic; you are the ladder upon which angels climb down to the roadside from heaven. And in all of this, let your living become and act of adoration—the small unpolished gesture that lifts your eyes from yourself and return your heart to the One who has always afored you first.'
'Lets live our whole life with our soul full of wonder.'
'So, we lament what is lost, we consecrate what we have, and we adore the One who takes it all—the blurriness and the brilliance, the interruptions and the invitations—and makes it into the main event. This life, your life, my life: the world to which we belong, the life we have always longed for, hidden in the life we have.'
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 6, 2026
This book made me tear up from its beauty, stop and thank the Lord for its truth, and highlight so many passages for their goodness.
This book reminds you of your place, your calling, your identity in ways you've heard and ways you haven't. You'll be both convicted and encouraged. (And the poetry, obviously, I mean, my gosh.) I will be buying multiple copies to give away and recommending many more.
"There is an invitation to another way awaiting all of us—an invitation to embrace all of life's potential for both heartbreak and hope, to feel it all, and to look ahead not with childish ignorance but with childlike expectation; not with hardened cynicism but with hopeful surrender; to see even our limitations as invitations."
{I received an ARC from HarperOne via NetGalley}
This book reminds you of your place, your calling, your identity in ways you've heard and ways you haven't. You'll be both convicted and encouraged. (And the poetry, obviously, I mean, my gosh.) I will be buying multiple copies to give away and recommending many more.
"There is an invitation to another way awaiting all of us—an invitation to embrace all of life's potential for both heartbreak and hope, to feel it all, and to look ahead not with childish ignorance but with childlike expectation; not with hardened cynicism but with hopeful surrender; to see even our limitations as invitations."
{I received an ARC from HarperOne via NetGalley}
August 4, 2026
I think this is the best book I’ve ever read
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews