LIFE

LIFE, a new devotional recently released by Lisa Harper caught my eye, with its bright pink cover and its tag line: 

An Obsessively Grateful, Undone by Jesus, Genuinely Happy, and Not Faking it Through the Hard Stuff Kind of Devotional

Yet, it is not exactly what I was expecting in a devotional. It's one that relies more on the author's stories, experiences, and anecdotes rather than scripture. And it goes fairly off base in translations (to one I'd never heard of or used) to find the word happy in the Bible. 

I struggle with reading it because off the bat, as Christians, we aren't called to being "happy" but we are called to JOY. Happy relies on emotions and circumstances but joy relies on God and therefore it isn't turbulent or fickle. And yet Harper takes us to this place of trying to make happy the goal justifying it by using that there are words in scripture that are in the "happy" family.

I'm sure there are some people who would love this devotional because of the seeming transparency but yet I do not see the transformation in it nor the focus on Jesus rather than self.

FYI: I received this devotional from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.