Searching for way to liveYou don't have to leave home to get in touch with a desire to figure out how to live in a way that is deeply, truly good. This longing can well up in you when you see someone at school put down an unpopular boy, when you feel bad cheating on a test, when you haven't had good talk with your mom or dad for weeks, when you learn about global warming in your science class. Your heart protests, but you don't know whom to share your feelings with or where to look for a better way. You just know that things aren't right.You don't have to be a teenager to experience this deep desire either. But the teenage years are a great time to let the desire surface, a great time to think about what a "good life" would be like and to speak your hopes out loud. These are years when lots of people are encouraging you to think about how you are going to live. A teacher might ask what you plan to do after high school.

Your big sister might keep a close eye on your social life, wondering where you are headed as you become an adult. You are getting used to being honest and reliable, or not. You are making choices today that will affect all your tomorrows. And besides, how you live matters right now. Life is not only something that lies ahead of you, after high school. You have talents and passions today. You have heart and mind and soul and strength today. You have the ability to help -- or to hurt -- other people and the earth today.

You do have the option of not thinking about how you live, of course. You could just go with the flow. Sit back and let other people tell you what to think and do. Some of the people who'd be glad to tell you are obvious: certain teachers, maybe your parents, even some of your friends. Others are not so obvious, like the "merchants of cool" -- marketers who want your deepest desires to be for the things they sell, from clothes and makeup to CDs and cars. They'd like to cover your body with advertisements and clutter your mind with images of a "good life" that's pretty different from the one you deserve. Their "good life" is about great vacations, glamorous clothes, and the hottest cars -- things few people possess and not what life is really about anyway.Having a good life -- God's lifeThis book invites you into a community of people who don't just go with the flow.