It used to be that the height of achievement in America was to get your face on our money. Only the best of the best presidents made it into numismatic immortality. But in recent years, the United States Mint has broadened its reach with the Susan B. Anthony dollar, the widely ignored Sacagawea dollar coin, and the wildly popular state quarters. According to today's New York Times, we haven't seen anything yet.

The Mint has found that state quarters are a gold mine, earning $4 to $5 billion on the series since 1999. Today they're unveiling designs for one-dollar coins featuring likenesses of the first four presidents. The series will last the next ten years and will portray every deceased president. The first coin displays George Washington and will go into circulation in time for Presidents' Day in February. Then coins featuring John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison will be issued in three-month intervals.

Everyone will get his turn. Remember Benjamin Harrison? Rutherford B. Hayes? William Taft? Your pocket soon will. Cowboys fans are ready to put Tony Romo on Mt. Rushmore, much less a dollar coin, after yesterday's victory over the unbeaten Colts. But so far the series will be limited to America's leaders, not America's Team's newest star.

It's the way of the world--success determines significance. You're valuable to the degree that we say you are. If your customers or students or friends like you today, you're a success. If you make money or heal patients or win cases, you're a person of worth. The trouble is that you're only as good as your last touchdown. If Tony Romo loses this Thursday's game, his face on Mt. Rushmore will come down before it goes up.

You're an actor on a stage, said the philosopher Heidegger. You have no audience or script, past or future; courage is to face life as it is. You're the random result of chaotic evolution, here by pure coincidence. Your life has no transcendent purpose, because none exists. The best you can hope for is a face on a coin.

Your Maker disagrees. He thinks about you more often than the number of grains of sand in the world (Psalm 139:17-18). (One mathematician calculates that number as 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.) He's thinking about you this very moment. He's ready to use your life for his eternal purposes. But first you must believe that he can. Trust that he can do more with your Monday than you can. Then give it to him. Surrender this day to his purpose and glory. Your face may not be in our coins, but it's in God's plans. And that's the greatest significance of all.

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